


Fate Is A Green-Eyed Monster

by River9Noble



Series: Green-Eyed Monsters Rule the (Soul) World [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Teen Titans - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Batfamily (DCU), Canonical Character Death, Cass is not Bruce’s kid, Dead Robins, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, JayCass - Freeform, M/M, No underage Sladick, Rape Recovery, References to Tarantula raping Dick, Romance, That's the only rape, Timkon, Tumblr: Jason Todd Rare Pair Challenge, Tumblr: fyeahjaysteph, but they don't stay dead, dickstroke, platonic JaySteph, sladick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:48:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 55,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26744632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/River9Noble/pseuds/River9Noble
Summary: Sometimes Fate needs a helping hand, and if there's one thing Jason Todd is not going to leave up to Fate, it's the life (or death) of another Robin*.In a world where soulmarks rule society and dictate who you can love, Jason embarks on a deeply personal quest that has absolutely nothing to do with soulmates. Until it does.A Soulmates AU*In other words, what if Jason found Steph being tortured by Black Mask in War Games and tried to save her but she died anyway and Jason was Not. Having. It. Cue the epic quest.[Updates randomly.]Ch. 1 is for the Tumblr:fyeahjaysteph September Prompt Fill - MEET UGLY
Relationships: Cassandra Cain/Jason Todd, Dick Grayson/Slade Wilson, Stephanie Brown & Jason Todd, Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent
Series: Green-Eyed Monsters Rule the (Soul) World [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1944724
Comments: 81
Kudos: 76
Collections: Bisexual Visibility, Jason Todd Rare Pair Challenge, Queer Characters Collection





	1. Dead Robins

**Author's Note:**

> This is part 3 of my series Green-Eyed Monsters Rule the (Soul) World. 
> 
> I strongly recommend that you read the other two first, although it won't matter so much for this first chapter. BUT the rest of the story ties directly into the first two fics. 
> 
> #1 - My Soulmate is a Green-Eyed Monster [BruSteph] (not underage)  
> #2 - Love is a One-Eyed Monster [Sladick] (not underage)
> 
> This beginning chapter takes place before Fic#1 but after Fic#2, but the timeline weaves around as the story progresses, which is why it will help to read the other two fics. 
> 
> Slightish TW - canonical character death and associated violence. Spoiler alert - they won't stay dead forever ;)
> 
> Cass is not Bruce's kid in this series.
> 
> Oh, and, Ch. 1 is for the Tumblr fyeahjaysteph prompt fill for September - "Meet Ugly". It's ugly, all right.  
> And platonic, in this universe. But I have loads more romantic JaySteph if your little shippers' hearts must be satisfied :)

He heard the screams first.

A girl, by the sound of it, probably not all that much younger than he was, shrieking with the tell-tale notes of torture.

_Fuckfuckfuckfuck_

Jason knew Black Mask was scum. Jason knew it and manipulated it to his advantage in Red Hood's crusade to clean the streets up, get drugs out of the hands of kids, keep working girls safe, and generally make life in the Narrows more livable for the ordinary people like he'd once been.

Jason knew Roman Sionis was about as bad as they come, but he'd never caught him torturing anyone before.

Red Hood had been dropping by one of Sionis's warehouses to discuss some new terms for their mutually beneficial kryptonite theft, and Jason thanked God that he wasn't in the habit of using the door.

If it had been someone who deserved the torture - a guy, maybe, and a definite villain - well, Jason still would have put a bullet through the poor schmuck's head to end their misery, but he wouldn't have taken it out on Roman. Business was business, after all, and Black Mask was good for Red Hood's.

And Roman could call Jason a chauvinist, although he preferred to think of himself as a gentleman, but torturing a lady crossed Red Hood's sometimes blurry line in the sand. Made him think of his mom crying in misery when her drugs ran out, and the girls he'd see as a kid on the corner getting the shit beat out of them by bad pimps and drunk johns, and Jason wasn't having it.

This wasn't only a girl, though, which would have been bad enough. This was a fellow teenager. A kid.

Roman didn't know it yet, but Red Hood and Black Mask's business collusion had just gone up in smoke.

Jason drew his guns as he silently stalked down the hallway towards the blood-curdling screams. From the corner of the shadows, he glanced out to see who exactly Sionis had chosen as his last and final victim and -

Holy shit.

It was Spoiler.

The new girl Robin. The blonde. Why - why was Robin back in the Spoiler costume? Did Bruce - oh, _shit._ Her costume was stained with more brown than purple due to how much she'd already bled, and fresh red blood stains were oozing from small wounds and her suit was tattered, falling away from larger cuts that were partially crusted over and - oh fuck oh fuckohfuck Roman was going in with a power drill.

Gunshots rang out over Spoiler's screams, the first bullet blowing Black Mask's brains out and the following flurry of fire taking down the guards and casual on-lookers and whoever else had made the very bad mistake this morning of walking into a warehouse where a motherfuckin _ROBIN_ was being tortured -

And Red Hood was shoving his guns back in their holsters and running over to Spoiler and sawing through her ropes with his knife and her head was hanging down so limply and the holes - God, she had so many holes drilled into her in some very worrying places, and huge swaths of jagged cuts carved out over her chest and stomach and legs and her breath sounded wet and rattly, fuckfuckfuck, don't die don'tdiedon'tdiedon'tdie -

"Tell B," she rasped out urgently as Jason cut the last rope and she collapsed into his arms from the metal grate that she'd been tied to like a strung-out scarecrow, "Tell B I didn't talk," she gurgled out around lungfuls of blood.

"Tell him yourself, Robin," Red Hood said shortly as he sat her down on the floor and tried to calm his panicking brain into figuring out if he should put tourniquets on or try to stop some of the bleeding or just get her to Leslie as fast as he could - _don'tdiedon'tdiedon'tdie -_ "you're gonna be fine," Red Hood hoped.

Jason's eyes were covered by his hood and he was only getting a digital video feed, but he couldn't mistake the sad, knowing look of pity that Robin gave him. He knew she heard the sniff as he scooped her up and ran out of the warehouse for his bike, seating her on the front of it facing backwards so he wouldn't have to grip her by the worst of her wounds before slinging himself on behind her and taking off as fast as he could for Leslie's clinic.

The only prayer that came to Jason's mind from his abandoned Catholic upbringing was the Hail Mary, and given Jason's experience with mothers, the words that wouldn't stop rattling through his freaking out brain felt as ominous as a cemetery bell tolling out a dirge over mourners.

 _Please don't let her die,_ Jason tried to pray over the clanging jumble of mothers and rituals and funerals scrambling up his mind. _pleasepleasepleaseplease_

"Tell my mom I'm sorry," Robin mumbled against his chest, and the tears were falling faster from Jason's eyes now under the cover of his hood as he sped along.

"Ok," Red Hood said instead of telling Robin to save her strength.

Why did people always say that when someone was dying? _Don'tdiedon'tdiedon'tdiedon'tdie_ It would bring her more comfort to get her final messages out but _please God, don't let her die_.

"Tim," Robin coughed out a minute later with some blood mixed in, "and Cass. Love them," she muttered, starting to fade out.

"I'll tell them," Jason swore, hanging onto her tight with one arm and steering with the other, skimming through the darkened streets of Gotham not nearly fast enough.

"Leslie!" Jason screamed, banging through the doors of her clinic with Robin barely breathing in his arms. " _LESLIE LESLIE -_ "

"Oh, my God," he heard the elderly doctor say in absolute horror as he set blonde Robin down as carefully as he could on the medical table in the empty room where Dr. Thompkins was going over charts.

"Does he know?" Leslie said curtly, quickly snatching up needles and IV tubes and trying to find a place somewhere on the girl's arm that wasn't drilled through so she could get a line started.

"No," Jason uttered hoarsely before taking his hood off and staring at Steph with ghosted eyes through his red domino. _Pleasedon'tdiedon'tdiedon'tdie_

"Call him _,_ " Leslie said in a clipped voice. "Tell him to hurry," she said shortly.

Jason blinked through his tears as he nodded, pausing to lay a gentle hand on Robin's blonde head before leaving the room.

"I'll be right back," he promised.

"Thank you, Robin," she whispered up at him with the tiniest smile, and a sob broke loose from Jason's throat.

He slammed his way out into the hallway and into a darkened exam room, kicking the door shut behind him as he dialed the phone number that he still knew by heart but refused to save in his phone.

"Who is this?" the Bat growled in a short-tempered voice laced with the kind of irritation that Jason knew meant that he had caught Bruce at a really, really bad moment.

"Spoiler's dying," Jason spat into the phone.

A beat of silence, and then -

"Jason?" wispy and confused before, "What happened?" snarled tight and low.

Jason heard Batman running, like that would do any good now.

Maybe if he'd run a little sooner, and how the fuck did he lose her, anyway, and, "Why the fuck was she in the Spoiler suit?" Jason yelled into the phone.

"She's _dying,_ Bruce - Black Mask tortured her for days from the looks of it, drilled her fucking organs, you motherfucking asshole, where _were you, why wasn't she dressed as Robin?_ " Jason screamed.

"I fired her," Bruce said in an even tighter voice, laced with guilt.

Always guilty too late, that was Bruce, wasn't it. Too slow, too late, too stupid, too -

"She's at Leslie's?" he was asking.

"Not for much longer," Jason said with a hysterical laugh. "Think you can get here in time to say good-bye to _this_ Robin, Bruce?" he hissed sarcastically before hanging up on his father.

Jason was through the door and back at Robin's side in an instant. Leslie met his eyes with her lips pressed together in a flat line and shook her head slightly.

"Bruce is on his way," Jason said to the girl whose real name he didn't even know.

Did it matter now? She was Robin and she was dying and Jason was crying and holding the few fingers he could find that weren't broken.

Her chest sounded thick and soupy with every breath but she was still taking them and she was struggling to open her eyes again.

"Baby," she managed to get out.

Jason cracked a grin, just for her, his special brave blonde Robin who deserved to be dazzled in her last few moments of life with a signature Jason Todd smile.

"I love you, too, sweetheart," he told her very seriously. "I'm so glad we found each other."

"Stupid," Robin wheezed out with a tiny chuckle lighting up her fading face, making Jason's tears run harder even though his cheeks hurt from how hard he was beaming back at her.

"Had a baby," she mumbled. "Love her too."

"I'll tell her," Jason promised. "I'll tell her how brave you were and I'll make sure nobody ever fucks with her, ok?"

"K," Robin whispered. "B knows," she said. "'dopted."

"Ok," Jason said. "We'll take care of her. Well, _I_ will," he said after a pause. "Bruce sucks at taking care of people, in case you hadn't noticed."

"No shit, Sherlock," his sassy Robin fired back, a smile still tickling her lips that had blood on them that Leslie hadn't had a chance to clean up yet.

The doctor was working around Jason and Spoiler's intertwined hands trying to patch wounds, even though there was no damn point and they all knew it, but Jason had a feeling that keeping busy was keeping the elderly Dr. Thompkins from breaking down into tears in front of Blondie.

"S death bad?" Robin said softly.

"I went to heaven," Jason said, squeezing her fingers a little tighter. "It was good."

"M I gonna go to heaven?" Robin wanted to know.

"Are you Catholic?" Jason teased, making her laugh again, which made Leslie have to turn away to cover her mouth in a sob.

"'piscopalian," Robin murmured. "Dad din' like the pope."

"I think you'll be ok," Jason smiled. "Just, um, pray to Jesus like they taught you real quick and apologize for all the bad stuff you did and say you're not gonna do it anymore. He'll forgive you."

"Not gonna do nothin' anymore," Steph quipped with a grin, but she shut her eyes and began moving her lips.

The front door to the clinic banged open and the Bat's heavy boots were running down the hall before he burst into the room.

"Steph -" Batman started to say but Jason held his hand up.

"Shut up, she's praying," he snapped. "Let her make her peace before you pretend to make yours."

Batman looked at his son with haunted eyes, but he sat down quietly and tugged his gloves off before picking up Robin's other hand.

"Hey, B," she said a few seconds later, her eyes fluttering back open, although the lids seemed heavier now.

"I'm so sorry," Batman rasped out, his chest heaving with the tears that he was trying to hold back.

"My fault," Robin said faintly.

"It fucking was not," Jason snarled even as Batman said, "No, Steph. It wasn't."

Robin started struggling to get words out and Batman was about to try to shush her when Jason growled, "Let her talk."

"S'any of it real, B?" blonde Robin asked with supreme effort. "S'I ever really Robin?"

"Of course you were," Batman choked out. "It wasn't - it wasn't a trick, Steph. I promise."

"Good," the girl mumbled with a little smile as her eyes started to close. "Then I was really part of it - part of the legend," she said with satisfaction.

Her breathing began to increase and get raspier and Leslie came over and laid a gentle hand on her head and began smoothing her hair back.

"Even if," Robin coughed in a strangled voice, "even s'only for a lil' while," she finished with maximum effort, her head falling back down on the pillow as her heart rate monitor slowed and blood pressure dropped.

Her chest slowly rose and fell, once, twice, three times more.

And then the monitor was coding and Leslie took a sharp inhale and Bruce sobbed and Jason was screaming and on his feet and punching his hand straight through the exam room's storage cabinets into the hidden cardboard boxes of exam gloves and tongue depressors before pulling his fist out and beating on the remaining upper doors with the flat of his hand while kicking holes in the lower ones and Leslie had barely cut the machine off before Jason was whirling around and punching Bruce square in the jaw.

Batman fell backwards off his chair onto his ass with the force of Jason's unexpected blow and Red Hood was kicking him in the ribs before he had a chance to get up.

"You killed her!" Jason screamed at him. "You killed her, you killed another Robin, you fucking bastard!"

Batman grabbed Jason's still kicking foot and flipped it up and backwards but Red Hood caught himself in a back flip and was back on his feet pummeling Batman again, who had quickly hopped to his feet and taken a defensive stance but seemed too stunned to fight back.

"Stop, stop! Jason, _stop!_ " he dimly heard Leslie screaming at him but he'd be damned if he was going to stop beating the man who had lost another Robin.

She was a kid, a kid, a kid, not much older than Jason had been when he'd died, and she'd been so brave, so fucking brave -

"Do you know the first words out of her mouth to me when I found her?" Jason shrieked at Bruce while landing another blow that Bruce didn't quite block.

"She said, 'Tell B I didn't talk,'" Jason screamed, catching a strong uppercut onto Bruce's jaw. "He drilled into her fucking _organs_ , you fucking bastard, and she still didn't fucking talk and the World's Greatest Detective fucking _lost track of her!_ " Jason raged.

His arm automatically flew back at the sharp pinprick in his shoulder and he accidentally knocked Leslie sideways before quickly catching her before she fell.

"Sorry," he gasped, righting her on her feet. "Sorry, Leslie. What the fuck did you give me?" he asked her with a frown, looking down at the empty syringe in her hand.

"Pentothal," Leslie said. "I doubt it'll knock you out, but it might knock some of that green out of your eyes," she said seriously.

Jason blinked, realizing that his heart rate was indeed beginning to slow and the ringing in his ears was quieting and he felt a little less out of control.

"Please don't kill him," Leslie said quietly, meeting Jason's eyes compassionately and not even bothering to look at Batman. "I can't take another death right now," she said in a shaky voice.

"I'll go," Jason muttered.

Leslie reached up and laid a wrinkly hand softly on his cheek, blinking away her tears. Jason leaned forward and kissed her temple before grabbing his hood off the counter and brushing past Bruce without another word.

"You are no longer welcome in this clinic," Leslie said to the boy she'd once co-parented with a soft steel in her voice. "And don't ever let me see another child wearing a cape in this town," she hissed.

"Leslie -" Batman started to say.

"Get out," she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STEPHHHHH! OH NO! NOT STEPHHHHHH!
> 
> (Spoiler alert....) heh
> 
> Thanks for reading! Loads more is coming!
> 
> Fanfiction writers are thirsty vampires and comments are our lifeblood. 🧛🩸😁  
> (But if you are mean, we will cut a bitch. Cuz we are vampires rawr 🦇)
> 
> You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble. Come say hi!


	2. Deep-Sea Diving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning - Suicidal thoughts.
> 
> **Suicide is the most heartbreaking ending possible to a life, for both you and your loved ones. I have been suicidal many a time and checked myself into hospitals and I am here, happy and whole on the other side, to tell about it. I also lost a dearly loved friend to suicide years later and the pain from that is never-ending.
> 
> If you are depressed or feeling suicidal, please know that the feelings that you think will never change will, in fact, pass one day, especially with proper medication and therapy. It absolutely gets better and you can recover and feel happy and motivated to live again.
> 
> If you are currently suicidal and a danger to yourself, please call 911* in the US and/or check yourself into your nearest emergency room if you are capable of getting there safely.
> 
> *Please use extreme caution in calling 911, especially if you are a POC. If there’s any way you can call an Uber or a friend to get you to the hospital instead, that’s what I’d advise doing.
> 
> The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (USA) at 1-800-273-8255 provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals.
> 
> The Trevor Project is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer & questioning (LGBTQ) young people under 25. Our trained counselors are here to support you 24/7. If you are a young person in crisis, feeling suicidal, or in need of a safe and judgment-free place to talk, call the TrevorLifeline now (USA) at 1-866-488-7386.
> 
> Opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines has International Suicide Hotline numbers.

"Bruce?" Tim said in confusion.

Why was Bruce calling him at all? Tim had quit as Robin after his dad had found out what he was up to and then threatened Bruce's life before yanking Tim out of Gotham and away to Metropolis.

"Tim…" Bruce rasped out, his voice sounding heavy and jagged.

Tim glanced around the crowded courtyard where he and his equally elite private school classmates were eating lunch. He shuffled over a little closer to a bare patch of wall.

"Is everything ok?" Tim asked his former mentor uncertainly.

Was… was that a _sob_? Why would Bruce be crying? ...Alfred, maybe? Oh, no.

A knot formed in Tim's stomach and he shivered, unexpectedly cold despite the sunshine.

"Steph's dead," Bruce said.

Tim had never gone deep-sea diving.

He preferred skateboarding and land sports, like gymnastics, and despite, or because of, his parents' former busy travel schedules, vacations with their only child weren't a priority.

The few times they had taken Timmy with them on a special trip had been to lavish cities like Paris or Rome, where his mom could parade in her elegant dresses and pearls and wear her big hats and fancy sunglasses and little white gloves so she'd look like Audrey Hepburn in all of their photos, her hair neatly tucked up with nary a flyaway and her lipsticked smile giving just the right amount of stretch in each shot to convey wonder and grateful appreciation (but never crass amazement) for the moment that they were privileged to experience, along with an appropriately moderate amount of affection for her son, whose shoulder her gloved hand was carefully perched on in each photo that Tim would have shot a thousand times better than his dad, but his mom always wanted photos with her and Tim, and Tim had never appreciated that at the time, he'd been more concerned with coaching his dad on how to use his camera and sometimes Tim had even resented his mom for insisting on Christmas-letter-worthy poses for each. and every. photo. instead of just letting them look natural, or take selfies with all three of them, but now that she was dead, Tim realized that her efforts were her way of showing Tim that she loved him and making sure he would have memories of her and of them together but they had never once, in their very few vacations as a family, ever even considered going deep-sea diving.

It was supposed to be very silent under the sea, Tim had always heard. And dark. Quite dark.

He'd swum in swimming pools of course, from time to time in elementary school at classmates' birthday parties hosted at their lavish, private, and rarely used backyard pools that even the smallest child in attendance knew far better than to pee in as they bobbed in the water and floated on inner tubes and didn't splash too much so that the alcohol-plied grown-ups in the lounge chairs wouldn't get wet as their heirs swam among the artful little waterfalls and rock borders and colored lights that each rich person's pool inevitably had, much to the detriment of the children's playtime, because the rocks were quite sharp if one banged into them and they could puncture the pool floats and the hoses for the waterfall features could be knocked off kilter and then the parents who owned the pool would get cross and sometimes even yell if they'd made it up to three or four daiquiris by that point, even though obviously the pool boy (or girl or woman or man) was more than capable of righting the waterfall so that it would flow down into the pool again instead of spraying the bougainvilleas and palm trees which were not supposed to get chlorinated water, thank you very much, and that kind of swimming wasn't very much fun and maybe that was why Tim wasn't inclined to go deep-sea diving.

Deep enough down, you couldn't hear anything at all from the surface anymore, Tim remembered learning. How far down was it, though? A few hundred feet? Less than that? At those interminable birthday parties, when Tim had bothered to dunk his head under the water, he could still hear the fake tinkling laughter of the adults and the steady bass background of Kid Bopz and it wasn't silent at all.

It was like being in a tunnel maybe, with the sound coming from very far away and kind of muted, but not muffled enough so that Tim couldn't hear Tommy Sander's dad yelling at Harry Johnston about the waterfall feature.

Deep-sea diving would probably be better than a swimming pool, Tim idly decided, as he listened to the distant sounds of Bruce saying words like Black Mask and gang wars and other words, worse words, words that Tim really would have preferred not to hear, and he wouldn't have heard them at all if he'd been down deeper.

Maybe he could submerge himself in the quiet if he held his breath for long enough. That's what some deep-sea divers did, right? The indigenous pearl divers, he thought, of some island or another. They didn't use oxygen tanks. They just held their breath and went down.

He could do that. All he had to do was stop breathing. And if Tim closed his eyes, it was almost like being underwater, except for the sunlight filtering through his eyelids. It was much too bright at the moment. So maybe if he - yes, that was better. The heels of his hands over his eyes. It was so much darker now. And the sound of Bruce's voice had disappeared.

There.

Just like being in the deep sea.

Tim was dragged to shore by two hands gripping his upper arms and a warm breath panting across his face.

"Tim?"

Well, that was a worried voice. They shouldn't be worried, though. Tim was fine. He was swimming underwater just like the pearl divers and he'd be fine. He didn't need oxygen. He'd tell them so in just a minute.

"Tim!"

The voice was more urgent now and sounded a little scared. It was a nice voice, washing over Tim like warm waves in Hawaii. The water was supposed to be warm in Hawaii, wasn't it? Or was that the Caribbean? Or maybe both? It didn't actually matter, Tim guessed, because he wasn't going to go to some silly island anyway and especially not to swim.

He hated swimming.

"Tim, come on. Open your eyes, buddy."

A hand was gently but firmly pulling one of Tim's blinders away and he growled in frustration at the sudden sunlight and the way that his eye automatically opened to it like a stupid sunflower or something.

Sunflowers followed the sun. Tim had taken pictures of them last year in Alfred's garden; he'd set his tripod up and snapped shots every fifteen minutes from dawn 'til dusk, all day long, and Alfred had brought him sandwiches and iced tea and cookies and even sat with him sometimes chatting about nothing important while Tim completed his photo project.

Tim wasn't a sunflower and he didn't want to see the sun. But what he saw were blue eyes blinking back at him, filled with fear and concern, and they were very pretty eyes so it wasn't such a bad view, actually. Huh.

"Tim," the anxious voice was saying again and another hand was forcing Tim's other eye out into the light and Tim noticed that the voice belonged to the eyes and the eyes were so pretty that Tim decided to listen.

"Huh?" he said.

"What happened?" Conner asked, his gorgeous blue eyes - they were gorgeous, _not_ pretty, Tim realized - and they were searching Tim's own, looking for some kind of answer.

Had he asked a question?

"I love your eyes," Tim smiled up at the boy, who blinked in response.

Oh, nice eyelashes, too. Bonus.

"Tim?" Conner said again, more gently this time, and his eyes had gotten softer, look at that, and the hands were back and squeezing Tim's shoulders.

"Can you tell me what happened? With your phone call?"

Oh. Phone call. Right. The water had fried his cellphone, Tim guessed, because Bruce's voice was thankfully gone.

Gone.

Steph was gone.

How - why - what -

Tim didn't notice when the gorgeous blue eyes turned panicked but he appreciated being pulled into a strong chest and wrapped up in really muscular and delicious arms and oh shit, was he crying?

Tim was crying.

Why was he cry - oh. Because Steph was gone. She was dead. Died. How had she died? She was Tim's best friend, his only real friend that he had, she couldn't just die, Tim needed her, clearly she couldn't be dead.

"Who's dead?" Conner was saying really gently and one of his hands was rubbing the back of Tim's head and threaded through his hair and wow, did that feel nice, so Tim snuggled his face deeper into Conner's chest and hugged him tighter.

When did his arms get around Conner? Not like he minded. Conner was warm and huggable and sweet and sooooo pretty, and his eyes weren't just pretty, they were _gorgeous._

"Gorgeous, huh," Conner said with a small laugh. "I'll remember that. Can you tell me who died, Timmy? I'm so sorry, buddy."

"Steph," Tim said, not quite understanding the word. "My best friend."

"Oh, shit," Conner said in horror.

"But she can't be dead," Tim said very rationally. "Bruce has it wrong. I'm sure he does. Steph was alive -"

Wait.

When had Steph last texted Tim?

Oh, shit.

A cold panic swept through Tim, dousing him in reality.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Tim suddenly babbled, pulling away from Conner's chest - he'd been hugging Conner? Huh. No time to dwell on that now.

He looked in his empty hand and then down at the ground.

"My phone, where's my phone?" Tim said in a panic.

"Here, here," Conner said quickly, pulling it out of the pocket of his own studded and patched leather jacket that he insisted on wearing despite the school's uniform code. He got away with it because the teachers were too scared of his dad to make him put it in his locker.

"It was on the ground next to you," Conner said, putting the phone in Tim's hand.

"Shit, shit, shit, when did she last text me?" Tim muttered rapidly, frantically unlocking his phone and clicking through apps until -

"Oh fuck," Tim whispered, his eyes going wide and still and horrified. "Fuck," he whispered. "No. No no nonononononono -"

Conner's arm was around his shoulders now, and they were sitting on the grass somehow, and Tim was crying into his neck.

"Four days," he sobbed out. "Four days, Conner. We never go that long without texting but I was working on my history project this weekend and I kind of forgot to sleep and I just got so busy and I didn't realize and -"

"It's ok," Conner said, hugging him tighter. "It's not your fault," he said.

"I should have realized," Tim argued, pulling away from Conner's yummy-smelling neck.

"I should have realized. I could have called Bruce. I could've -" he burst into sobs, big ones this time that hurt his chest as they came out, and they were loud, too, so loud that a teacher was coming over, and Conner was saying, "His best friend died," and the teacher's face was getting all sad and teary and she was saying that she'd call Tim's dad and that Tim and Conner should just stay out here even though everyone else was going back to class and then she was gone just like Steph was gone and Tim was alone because Bruce was gone, too, his dad had forced him out of Tim's life so now everyone he loved was gone, even Robin was gone and Tim wanted to be gone, too.

"You're not going anywhere, buddy," Conner said with the utmost confidence as he downright cuddled Tim against him, now, soothing him until his sobs died down.

"You haven't finished telling me about my eyes," Conner pointed out.

Tim gulped and sniffed and looked into them.

"And when you finish talking about my eyes," Conner said, "not that you ever will, because how could you ever run out of good things to say about such gorgeous orbs?" the boy said, fluttering his equally beautiful lashes at Tim.

"But if you ever need to take a small break from telling me about my eyes, then you've got my smile and my hair and my killer sense of style -"

"I like you," Tim blurted out.

He'd never really talked to Conner Luthor before. Since his dad was Lex, and all.

But there was something really special about him and Tim realized his hip was tingling the faintest bit where it was pressed against Conner's.

Ohmygod, did that mean...?

Sometimes, once in a while, some lucky soulmates got a phantom pain when they met each other, before they were old enough for their marks to appear. But it only happened if they made a really strong emotional connection.

So if his hip was - and Conner was - and Tim was -

"You like me?" Conner was grinning at him now. "Tell me more," he said.

"I think you might be my soulmate," Tim said in wonder.

"Wait, is your hip buzzing too?" Conner squealed in sudden excitement.

"Yeah," Tim sniffed, smiling a little bit despite his absolutely wrecked heart and his tears.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhaskljdfhfdsgkjhiasjfd," Conner yelled, tackling Tim sideways onto the grass into an enormous hug that he was deliriously grinning into and even though Tim couldn't do much more than sigh with relief as he hugged Conner back and snuggled into him, the other boy seemed to understand.

"I fucking hate that your best friend died," Conner said with heartfelt grief a few minutes later, pushing himself up on an elbow so his face was hovering over Tim's instead of pressed into the side of it as Tim lay under him on the grass.

"Me, too," Tim whispered hollowly, tears still pooling in his eyes and leaking down into the bombed out cavern in his chest that was so big he could build a swimming pool in it.

"I'll take care of you now," Conner said very seriously, reaching up and brushing his rough palm over Tim's wet cheek. "So no more talk of killing yourself, ok?" he said with a worried frown.

"I said that?" Tim blinked.

Well. That kind of made sense. He hadn't had Conner a few minutes ago. He hadn't had anybody. Even Bruce was gone, except - why the hell did Bruce still have to be gone?

Steph was dead and Tim hadn't been there and if his dad hadn't made him leave Gotham and leave Robin she'd still be alive and fuck his dad, Tim was going back to Bruce and back to Gotham and he'd like to see Jack Drake try to stop Robin from flying home.

"Yeah," Conner was answering him, though. "You said you wanted to be dead, too," his soulmate said somberly.

Tim sighed.

"I guess I don't mean it, anymore," he said, tugging Conner back down into him and exhaling with contentment as Conner's heavy weight pressed into him tighter.

Because when it came right down to it, Tim felt like he was already dead anyway, his insides turned to ash, even though pieces of coal from the explosion were still on fire and burning him and he hadn't cried nearly enough tears yet to put the smoldering embers out.

But ashes or no ashes, no way was Tim going to leave Conner alone now that they'd found each other.

"Will you stay with me today?" Tim whispered up to him pleadingly.

"Not just today," Conner smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, please see the above resources if you are feeling suicidal and in need of assistance. Help is available and life will get better. We want you in it :)
> 
> Lots more chapters coming! Don't forget to subscribe to the story if you want updates when new chapters post.
> 
> Fanfiction writers are thirsty vampires and comments are our lifeblood. 🧛🩸😁  
> (But if you are mean, we will cut a bitch. Cuz we are vampires rawr 🦇)
> 
> You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble. Come say hi!


	3. A Most Merry Merger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW - language that appears racist at first to some in the scene but is only misinterpreted that way, because Tim's dad is both an idiot and an asshole. He gets called out on it, though.

"Oh, my," Tim and Conner heard a somewhat alarmed adult say from somewhere over their heads.

Tim raised his eyes from being locked with Conner's outrageously gorgeous blue ones to the lofty origin of the voice that had tried really quite hard in only two syllables to find an appropriate tonal balance that weighed protecting the students in her care from society's wrath regarding illicit non-soul-relations as much as protecting herself from the wrath of said students' parents, who might be wont to determine that a lowly private school teacher had no right to lecture two such illustriously wealthy children about the dangers of full-body-on-the-grass-cuddles-complete-with-heart-eyes, even if said parents would rant and rave at the students about it themselves later that night behind closed doors.

"It's ok, we're soulmates," Tim said somewhat drowsily to the hand-wringing Ms. Won.

Ms. Won drew in a surprised breath, raising her eyebrows as she looked the pair over with new eyes.

"We're Premarked," Conner grinned back up at her. "We both feel it."

"Oh, boys," Ms. Won breathed out in awe. "How wonderful," she said in a hushed, reverent voice. "The Universe knew that you needed your Soulmate today, Tim," she sniffed, her eyes starting to fill with some tears that she hurriedly tried to wipe away.

Tim had to swallow as his own eyes started to water again.

"Yeah," he mumbled, looking back up at Conner who was watching over him protectively from his comfortable position on top of Tim that he didn't show the slightest embarrassment at being caught in.

"Tim's father is here to take him home," Ms. Won said, though, prompting Conner and Tim to both groan at the thought of getting up, although Conner obediently rolled off of Tim and pulled him up to his feet.

"I'm going home with Tim," Conner breezily announced as he brushed the grass off the back of Tim's uniform jacket and pants.

Their English teacher gave Conner an eyebrow that could just barely be called snarky.

"Your father will have to give permission for that, Conner," was all she said, though. "Mr. Drake can't just sign you out."

"Dad will be fine with it," Conner said, already pulling his phone out, but Ms. Won shook a finger at him.

"You need to call him from the office," she said.

"Fine," Conner grumbled, sliding his phone away again into his leather jacket and taking Tim's hand in his, interlocking their fingers and grinning when Tim squeezed them just as Conner was doing the same.

"Do you need to get anything from your locker or last class, Tim?" Ms. Won asked, perhaps accidentally not including Conner in her question.

"No," Tim muttered, really not caring whether or not his books and backpack were still there whenever he might return to school, which if he had his way would be never.

He had his phone, and that was all he needed.

"Do you need anything, Conner?" he asked his soulmate.

And despite the hollowness in his heart, there was a tiny muscle in Tim's feet that wanted to skip for joy when he thought the word _soulmate_.

"Nah, I'm good," Conner said, smiling mischievously back at him in a way that said that there was no 'accidentally' about his teacher ignoring his simultaneously imminent departure.

Conner was not the teachers' favorite, by far, and not just because Lex was his dad. Tim, however, would have been more than glad to befriend Conner if it wasn't for who his dad was. The former Robin had secretly shot more than a few admiring glances at Conner over the last few months since his arrival in Metropolis, enamored with Conner's sass and outrageous nature, but he couldn't go around making friends with the son of a super-villain, even if he wasn't currently Robin.

And... oh. That was going to become interesting, trying to explain his soulmate to Bruce.

Not to mention, Conner lived in Metropolis, and Tim was planning his escape back to Gotham even as their teacher walked them down the school's pretentious main corridor which was filled with showcase after showcase of crew and lacrosse and field hockey trophies, and -

"Timmy?" Conner was asking him, gripping his hand a little tighter and looking down at him with concern. "You still with me?"

"Always," Tim automatically replied, answering his own question instead of Conner's.

They'd figure it out. They were soulmates. And Steph was gone, so Conner was all Tim had left.

"Timothy?" Jack Drake said in a horrified voice when Tim and Conner walked hand in hand into the main office behind Ms. Won, who hastily whispered something in the Headmistress's ear before scurrying away to safety.

"Dad, this is Conner," Tim said. "My soulmate."

Jack's jaw dropped as he took in the three inch spikes protruding from the shoulders of Conner's leather jacket, which were only slightly shorter than the gelled spikes on top of his head, and the hem of Conner's white button-down shirt, which, aside from hanging outside his pants where it most certainly didn't belong was artfully frayed into tattered strips littered with safety pins, and Conner's tie was black, yes, but uniform ties were most certainly _not_ supposed to have skulls on them.

Jack took a deep breath.

"Tim," he began, "it's very rare to be Premarked. Are you sure…?" he said suggestively, in a patented fatherly-tone designed to instill doubt in one's offspring.

"Totally sure," Conner said flatly, meeting his future father-in-law's eyes with a menacing glint in his own that were, dear God, coated with eyeliner.

On the top _and_ bottom lids, no less. Oh, my, Jack thought. Earrings, too, he noted. Several.

Jack was revving himself up to speak again but Tim got his words out first.

"My hip pain has only been getting stronger," he said. "It feels like a bad toothache, now," he said. "But in a totally good way," he grinned up at Conner, whose dark look for Jack turned tender in an instant for Tim. 

"Your hip, too, Conner?" Headmistress Martins asked.

Conner hesitated for the slightest second.

"It doesn't exactly hurt," he said, "but my whole hip is vibrating like a swarm of bees, and yeah, it's getting more intense."

"Well, that certainly sounds like Premarked to me," the Headmistress smiled before giving Tim a much more sympathetic look.

"I am so sorry for the loss of your friend, Tim," she said gently. "We won't expect to see you back at school for at least the rest of the week," she said, "and longer, if needed," she added to Mr. Drake, who was still silently fuming.

"Don't expect me, either," Conner said. "I'm going home with Tim."

"Now, I really don't think -" Jack began to say, but the Headmistress broke all parental protocol by very gently laying a hand on his forearm to stop him.

He glared at her, deeply offended.

"Why don't you call your father on your cellphone, Conner, to ask for permission, and then let me talk to him?" Headmistress Martins said. "Mr. Luthor is usually far too busy to take phone calls from the school line himself," she said, giving Jack a very significant look.

Jack choked on his inhale.

"Lex - you're Lex's boy?" he sputtered out to Conner, his eyes going wide as a huge, enraptured smile broke out onto his face, almost as ghoulish as Joker-gas victims wore, Tim idly noted.

"Obviously," Conner muttered as he pulled out his phone.

"Tim!" Jack exclaimed, beaming now. "This is fantastic! Premarked with Lex Luthor's son? Why, this is absolutely fabulous news," the head of Drake Industries proudly proclaimed to a son who could care less about his father's sudden change of heart.

"What a pity it had to come on such a sad day," the Headmistress said sharply, giving Jack a cool look.

"What? Oh - yes, er, terrible tragedy about your friend," Jack mumbled to Tim. "I'm - very sorry, son," he added under the Headmistress's stern eye and Conner's fully malevolent one.

"Right," Tim said shortly.

If his father hadn't forced him to stop being Robin, Steph wouldn't even be dead.

Dead. Dead. She was dead. Dead.

"It was the Brown girl, I assume?" Jack was saying.

"DUDE!" Conner spat out, looking at Jack with blatant contempt. "Racist, much?" he snarled.

Jack gaped at him and Tim began quietly snickering as Conner exchanged a disgusted look with Headmistress Martins, who happened to be black.

"No - No!" Jack gasped, realizing his faux pas. "No, no, no!" he said more quickly. "Her last name is Brown. The girl is Caucasian. I assure you," he said.

"The girl's _name,_ " Tim snarled in sudden anger, "was Stephanie, and she's _dead_ ," he snapped at his father.

An uneasy silence fell in the office, which the Headmistress made absolutely no effort to alleviate.

"I'll call my dad," Conner finally said to no one, dialing the number.

"Hey Dad," he said a second later, and Tim felt tears starting in the backs of his eyes and not over Steph this time, because would Jack Drake even bother to pick up his phone at all, let alone on the first ring, if his son ever called him?

Why was a super-villain apparently a better father than his own?

"I'm ok," Conner was saying. "I met my soulmate, actually! We're Premarked."

"Yeah, that part's great," he said after a slight pause, "but we connected 'cause his best friend just died and he was really upset and I was trying to help."

"Tim Drake," Conner said a second later to Lex's obvious question. "I dunno, I'll ask," he said. "Is your name Jack?" he asked Tim's father.

"Yes," Jack Drake said, puffing up like a peacock.

Conner snorted.

"Yeah, that's him," Conner said back into the phone. "So I want to go home with Tim, that's ok, right? Ok. Ok. Ok," he said. "Love you, too," he added, making Tim's heart wrench even tighter as Conner handed the phone to the Headmistress saying his dad wanted to talk to her.

"You ok, Timmy?" Conner was asking him all soft and gentle in his ear, deliberately turning them away from Tim's awful father.

"I'll tell you about it later," Tim whispered, flicking his eyes backwards the barest bit, and Conner nodded in silent understanding.

The Headmistress was nodding and appeared to be wrapping her phone call up when she said, "Of course," and held Conner's phone out to Mr. Drake.

"Mr. Luthor would like a word," she said.

Jack beamed. Again. He was doing a really great impression of a headlight, Tim thought sourly.

"Ah, Lex!" Jack blustered into the phone.

"Jack!" Lex bellowed back to him on the other end of the line. "Fantastic news about our boys, although I'm sorry as hell for your son's loss, of course," Lex said.

"Of course, of course," Jack murmured, taking on an appropriately doleful tone.

"I assume you'll be staying at home with Tim for the rest of the day?" Lex asked without pausing for an answer.

"I'm in a meeting I absolutely need to finish," he continued, breezing through Jack's sudden confused hesitation like the Metropolis Academy crew team on their way to gold. "I'll be done in another hour, hour and a half, and then I'll clear my schedule and head over to your place. See you then?" Lex said, clearly expecting instant agreement.

"Yes, yes, of course!" Jack stuttered, despite the fact that he had been planning to drop Tim at their building and go straight back to work. "We'll see you then," he repeated weakly.

"Pull down the top shelf brandy," Lex chuckled. "I'll bring the cigars."

"Will do," Jack feebly chuckled back as Lex hung up.

"Well," Jack said, pulling out his handkerchief to dab the sweat off of his brow as Conner coldly reached out and plucked his phone from his hand.

"I'll take you home with us, then, Conner," Jack said, "and your father will be over when his meeting finishes."

Lex had been in a meeting? Tim thought, lanced by an even more piercing pain. And Lex had still answered Conner's call on the first ring?

Tim noticed the clock hands on the wall were well past the end of the lunch hour. Exactly how long had he and Conner been outside together by themselves before his father had managed to make it the five blocks from Drake Industries: Metropolis Branch, to Metropolis Academy? Tim wondered.

"Dad told me his plans," Conner was growling at Jack, looking for all the world like a semi-rabid hyena stalking its prey.

"Very good, then, very good," Jack said with a final pat of his handkerchief to his head, blissfully ignorant of his potential demise at the hand of his son's future mate.

"You'll just need to sign the boys out, Mr. Drake," Headmistress Martins said dryly, sliding the clipboard over to him with a pitying look for Tim and Conner as soon as Jack was hunched over it.

"I'm truly sorry, Tim," she said quietly. "If there's anything we here at Metropolis Academy can do to help you through your loss, don't hesitate to let us know," she said.

"Ok," Tim mumbled to that well-meaning but absolutely pointless offer.

Headmistress Martins was persisting, though.

"Our guidance counselor can do some grief sessions with you when you return and recommend a good outside therapist," she was saying.

Tim sighed. He got it. She was trying to be nice. She really was and if he was coming back to school and if Steph had died in a car accident instead of being murdered by Black Mask, her suggestions might even be helpful, but all Tim wanted to do was get back to Gotham (with Conner at his side, preferably) crawl into his real bed in his real house (which was Wayne Manor, obviously, and not his parents' home) and stay asleep for the next hundred or so years until his heart grew back, except for going out on his night patrols as Robin again, of course.

Jack Drake could go screw himself, Tim thought bitterly.

Conner wrapped his arm around Tim's waist and tugged him into his side as they trudged after Jack to the curb outside the school where the Drake's driver was waiting with his flashers on. Jack hesitated before awkwardly getting into the front seat rather than sitting in the back with the two boys, and Conner snorted again under his breath, which made Tim giggle a little bit, too.

It was nice to have somebody who appreciated how cold his father was, Tim realized, leaning into Conner and tucking his head into his shoulder.

"They're Premarked," Mr. Drake boasted to his driver, who was giving the two teens a surreptitious glance in the rearview mirror with the smallest frown of judgment at the corner of his mouth.

"This is -"

"Nobody," Conner interrupted Jack loudly. "Dude. You can't go sharing shit that like without a proper press release," Conner said, rolling his eyes up to heaven. "Do you want Tim hounded by reporters at Steph's funeral?" he said, glaring at Jack with eyes that looked almost ready to burn the older man into oblivion.

Tim shivered.

That was… super hot.

"Oh," Jack said, his mouth falling open slightly. "I didn't think - it's just Ted," he said, startling Tim that he actually knew his driver's name.

Conner narrowed his kohl-rimmed eyes at Jack.

"My dad's gonna be really pissed at you if you tell anybody who I am or who he is before he decides on our media strategy," he said knowingly.

Tim filed away for future use that the threat of Lex being angry at Jack made his dad turn pale and straighten right up. He smirked to himself in the privacy of the backseat and Conner, being the sensational soulmate that he was, noticed and smirked right back at him with a sexy wink thrown in for good measure.

Oh, Tim liked him a lot.

Maybe having a super-villain for a father-in-law wouldn't be such a bad thing, after all, Tim thought, if it got his own father off his back - but a more sinister thought suddenly gripped his stomach.

What if Conner was a villain, too? Or, at least, a villain in training? Oh, shit. Bruce was going to kill him. Oh, shit shit shit shit -

"Timmy?" Conner whispered in his ear. "Your heart rate's going through the roof. You ok, babe?" he murmured with concern.

And - oh. Conner had just called him babe and Tim was melting back into Conner's side in a happy puddle.

Conner couldn't be evil, right? Tim surely couldn't have an evil soulmate. Because Tim was a hero and the Universe didn't work that way.

He hoped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Probably one more chapter of TimKon in Metropolis before we swing back to Jason in Gotham where Cass is soon to appear.
> 
> Fanfiction writers are thirsty vampires and comments are our lifeblood. 🧛🩸😁  
> (But if you are mean, we will cut a bitch. Cuz we are vampires rawr 🦇)
> 
> You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble. Come say hi!


	4. Super-Villain, Super-Dad

As soon as they had crossed the threshold of the Drakes' downtown Metropolis penthouse apartment, Tim was dragging a willing Conner straight to his bedroom without a further word to his father, kicking the door shut behind them.

"Agghhh," Tim groaned into his pillow as he flopped face down onto his bed.

Conner hummed sympathetically.

"At least let me take your jacket and tie off before you totally collapse," he said to the sounds of removing his own leather jacket.

Tim rolled his head to the side and saw Conner neatly hanging his intimidating work of art over the back of his computer chair, followed by his tie, before coming to sit down on the edge of the bed and rubbing a hand over his soulmate's back.

"C'mon, Timmy, sit up, babe," Conner said gently, grasping one of Tim's very pliant hands and pulling him upright with a surprising ease.

"What?" Conner said with a soft smile playing on his lips at the sudden sparkly glow in Tim's eyes.

He tugged Tim's uniform jacket off of his shoulders and folded it in half on the bed before reaching up to loosen Tim's tie.

"I like when you call me babe,” Tim mumbled with a little bit of embarrassment as his stomach flipped like it had done the first time Bruce had done a tandem jump with him off of a Gotham skyscraper, letting them fall stories and stories towards the pavement before shooting the grappling hook and swinging them through the air, far above the bustling streets below.

"I like you being my babe," Conner replied with a twinkle in his eye, leaning forward to boop their noses together.

He lifted Tim's tie off of his head and stood up to drape it, with his folded jacket, over the top of his leather jacket already hanging on the chair.

"Shoes," Conner grinned, reaching down to unlace Tim's very ordinary shoelaces on his very unremarkable brown shoes such as the male population of the student body wore en masse with their uniform khakis.

"Your boots are awesome," Tim said in awe when Conner started unlacing his own, very out-of-uniform footwear.

"Doc Martens," Conner grinned, showing off the red plaid in-lays and the yellow contrast stitching and the studded heels.

"They come in Oxfords," Conner said suddenly, looking up at him from where he was wrestling with the laces. "I could get you a pair and we could match," he offered with excitement.

"If you wanted to," he suddenly tacked on, blushing and looking back down at his boots that he determinedly finished kicking off.

Tim couldn't stop the smile that creased his face and the warmth that began to radiate through the hole in his gut where Steph had once lived.

"I'd love that," Tim said shyly, crawling up behind Conner and wrapping his arms around his shoulders from behind.

"Yeah?" Conner said, all smiles again as he turned his head and looked at Tim hopefully.

"Yeah," Tim whispered, leaning into the lips that were oh so close to his.

His heart fluttered as their lips touched, no more than a gentle press at first, but then Conner tried experimentally sucking the edge of Tim's bottom lip into his mouth, so Tim tried to do the same to Conner's top lip, and then Conner was twisting sideways and sliding his arms behind Tim and hugging him close and Tim's arms were going around his neck and suddenly they were two boys kissing each other a little more boldly, despite their inexperience.

Tim didn't know how he could feel so bad and so good all at once, because his heart was still bleeding out for Steph, but it was turning somersaults for Conner, and as he and Conner kept kissing and pressing their bodies closer and closer together, Tim felt a deeper sense of belonging settle into his being than he'd ever felt before; stronger than he'd felt even as Robin or with Steph.

And tiny balloons of happiness were floating around his chest somehow, in and around the smoking carnage, despite the fact that his tear ducts were still battling sorrow.

Tim found himself smiling and tucking his face into the side of Conner's, who took the opportunity to squeeze him even tighter around his waist.

"I've had a crush on you for so long," Conner mumbled into Tim's hair.

"Really?" Tim gasped, pulling back to look into his favorite pair of eyes.

"Yeah," Conner said, "but you know we're not supposed to date anybody except our soulmates, so…" he shrugged. "My dad's really cool about most things but I think that would've made him mad. And you never really talked to me anyway, so."

Conner bit his lip.

"I wanted to," Tim said, blushing a little bit and looking down.

"Yeah?" Conner said, his eyes lighting up. "Why didn't you, then?"

"I -" Tim started to say, and then he stopped.

Shit.

He didn't think _Because your dad's a super-villain_ , would go over too well.

"I, um, I was scared of your dad," Tim mumbled.

It wasn't untrue.

"Oh," Conner was laughing. "You and the rest of the world. He's really cool, though. You're gonna like him."

"I hope so," Tim said.

"You will," Conner easily promised.

"So," he said, drawing back from Tim a little bit. "Was Steph from Gotham? Do you need to pack for the funeral? I could help you," he said.

"Oh, sure," Tim said, blinking.

The funeral. Right. Excellent excuse to get back to Gotham. And once he was there, he'd simply stay. Jack or no Jack.

"Yeah, she was from Gotham," Tim sighed as he got up and went over to his closet to pull out a duffel bag.

"Will you come with me?" Tim asked Conner with slightly vulnerable eyes. "Back to Gotham?"

"Hell, yes, I'm coming with you, Timmy," Conner said in surprise. "Of course, babe."

The duffel bag hit the floor and Tim was in Conner's lap kissing him again before his soulmate even realized that he'd used Tim's new favorite pet name, but Conner didn't mind one bit. They could pack later.

* * *

"Jack!" Lex boomed as Tim's father opened the door and welcomed him into their pre-furnished Metropolis home that still smelled like new carpet and fresh paint.

"What a fantastic turn of events, huh?" Lex was smiling, engulfing his barely-former competitor into a giant bear hug, to Jack's great surprise but deep pleasure.

"Except for your boy's friend, of course," Lex added suddenly, pulling back and looking grim. "Damn shame that had to happen."

"Yes, yes," Jack agreed. "Very tragic," he said without feeling.

"How'd she die?" Lex asked curiously.

Jack paused.

"You know," he said slowly, scratching the back of his head, "I'm not exactly sure. The school didn't say when they called me and then Tim and Conner turned out to be soulmates, so we got sidetracked."

Lex grunted.

"Let's get the boys in here and get all the details," he said. "We might need to run interference on the media. What kind of girl was she?" he asked as Jack moved them along into his modern living room, the white area rug and white leather couches gleaming in the afternoon sunlight that was streaming through the large floor to ceiling windows of the penthouse suite.

"Oh, she was a problematic one," Jack said with disgust. "Daughter of one of Gotham's D-rogues, Cluemaster. You probably haven't heard of him," Jack snorted dismissively.

Lex made a non-committal noise but his eyes sharpened.

"Had a baby when she was fourteen or fifteen," Jack went on with a derisive scoff. "Real winner Timothy picked there as a friend, let me tell you," he huffed. "I knew this would come back to bite me one day," he growled, unstopping the brandy and pouring them each a snifter.

"We can spin it," Lex said mildly with a carefully neutral expression on his face. "Why don't you call the boys in and I'll figure out how we can frame it."

"Sure, sure," Jack said. "I tell you what, Lex, I'm glad you've got experience with this kind of thing," Jack said, shaking his head. "The press, I mean," he said as he walked down the hallway towards the bedrooms.

Lex watched him go with a thoughtful expression on his face.

A few seconds later Tim and Conner were following Jack into the living room, and Lex was standing to his feet.

"Tim," Lex said warmly, with a kind look in his eyes. "I'm very glad to meet you, son," he said, reaching forward and pulling the surprised teenager into a genuinely affectionate hug as Conner stood by and beamed.

"Um, thank you," Tim mumbled, looking slightly embarrassed as Lex let him go. "It's nice to meet you too, sir," he said.

Jack straightened up and smiled behind him, pleased as ever with his son's public manners, but Lex was chuckling and saying, "No, no, no, call me Lex."

"Or Dad," Lex beamed in a smile reminiscent of Conner's, gripping the tops of Tim's arms and giving them a friendly squeeze. "You're family now," Lex smiled.

"Oh," Tim said as an unwanted smile crept onto his face, too.

He felt oddly flustered by the super-villain's kindness.

"Thank you," Tim said again. "Maybe, um, maybe I'll just call you Lex for now," he said, turning a little red. "If that's ok."

"Of course," Lex said. "And," he added, suddenly getting serious, "I am so terribly sorry about your friend's death," he said, and Tim was startled to see actual flecks of sorrow in Lex's eyes.

"You're far too young to have to endure such a loss," Lex was continuing to say in a heavily sympathetic voice, "especially after losing your mother last year."

"Yeah," Tim said in shock, his eyes starting to fill with some tears.

His dad hadn't even mentioned his mom since learning of Steph's death. Or offered any real sympathy to Tim, for that matter, except for show. Tim swallowed.

"Conner and I are here for you now, son, in any way we can be," Lex said, pulling him into another hug that Tim found himself returning fairly tightly.

Lex smiled at him when he let him go and Tim found himself smiling back, as a happy Conner took his hand and got a kiss on the forehead and an affectionate neck squeeze from Lex before they all sat down on the Drakes' rarely used couches.

"Pour some brandy for the boys, Jack," Lex grinned. "I'm sure they could both use it."

"Oh," Jack said, quickly trying to hide his discomfort at that notion. "All right," he said, busying himself with the decanter as Lex pulled out two cigars and clipped the ends before lighting them both in his mouth and offering one to Jack once the boys had been served.

"Cuban," Lex said with a wink and a grin. "Naturally."

"Naturally," Jack preened, reveling in both the attention and the casual luxury that Lex threw around so easily.

Not that Drake Industries wasn't a major corporate player, and even a competitor of LexCorp in the pharmaceuticals field in particular, but, well, very few people in life were Lex Luthor rich, even if they were wealthy in their own right.

"Now, Tim," Lex said, getting right down to business and taking control of the conversation - much to Tim's relief, in fact.

The less his father talked, the better.

"There's going to be a significant amount of press around you and Conner discovering that you're Premarked," Lex said matter-of-factly. "If you two boys had been anyone else, it would have been a fluff piece on a morning talk show that died down in a day or two. But seeing as how you're the heirs of LexCorp and Drake Industries, respectively, there will be a lot of attention."

"In and of itself, that would be tolerable," Lex said. "But, given that your dear friend has just died, and that her death was in fact the prompting factor for discovering your bond, and the fact that you discovered your bond at school where at least two staff members are already aware of the incident, we need to craft our own narrative to feed to the press that honors your friend's memory and paints her and you both in the best possible light."

Tim felt a cold vise grip his stomach.

"What… what do you mean?" he faltered as his heart began to beat faster.

Conner squeezed his hand in support.

"What was your friend's name?" Lex said gently. "Let's start with that."

"Steph," Tim said, and he hated that his voice cracked. "Stephanie Brown," he said, blinking rapidly.

"Stephanie," Lex said warmly. "Now, your father tells me that Stephanie's father was a minor criminal in Gotham, and that Steph had a baby when she was younger. Neither of those things are bad," Lex quickly stressed, "or reflect badly on her," he said, "but the unfortunate reality of the press is that they love nothing more than scapegoats and scandal."

Tim felt his panic start to rise just before Conner started to rub his back.

"It'll be ok, Timmy," Conner said confidently. "My dad can spin anything."

"Indeed," Lex smiled at his son. "There's no need for anxiety, Tim. We'll feed the press a story of such nobility and strength of character that Steph will become a veritable saint."

"I don't want her to be a saint," Tim protested, feeling his heart rip a little more. "She was who she was. Not perfect," he said, raising an arm to wipe his eyes.

"You know that, Tim," Lex said compassionately, leaning forward with his elbows propped on his knees. "But the press reports on saints or devils, and there's no in-between," he said. "I'd rather see Steph made a saint," Lex said gently. "Wouldn't you?"

"Yeah," Tim mumbled as another embarrassing tear leaked down his cheek. "If those are the only two choices, then yeah," he said quietly.

Conner slung his arm around his neck and kissed the side of his face.

"Maybe Steph would've found it funny?" Conner asked. "To be blown out of proportion in the press and praised for something she wasn't quite?"

A completely unexpected chuckle filled Tim's clogged throat. Lex and Conner met each other's eyes and Lex's got a little softer.

"Yeah," Tim sniffed, rubbing his nose on his sleeve. "Yeah, actually, she would have thought that was hilarious," he said. "We should really play it up," he said with a choked laugh.

"How'd you think of that?" Tim asked Conner curiously. "You didn't know her."

"She was your best friend," Conner said, "and you're my soulmate, so Steph and I must have some things in common. I would think it was funny if my dad exaggerated stories about me," he shrugged with a giggle for his dad, who shook his head in mild amusement.

"How did Steph die, Tim?" Lex asked very, very gently.

And time stopped.

Tim sat frozen, blinking like a timer on a disconnected bomb.

"Um," he said after a minute, his mind just as blank.

"I -" he hesitated.

Lex was watching him very patiently, but Tim swore he could see the gears turning behind Lex's eyes. Oh, shit. Oh, shitohshitohshitohshitohshit - what the fuck should he say? Tim thought in a panic.

Tim made the mistake of glancing over at his dad, whose eyes had narrowed into slits. Oh, shit. His dad must suspect. Oh, fuck. Don't tell Lex - don't tell Lex don'tellLexdon'ttelllexdon'ttell -

Jack opened his mouth and drew a breath.

"She was Spoiler," Tim blurted out. "A vigilante in Gotham. Well, sort of," he said, his words beginning to tumble out more rapidly. "She only became Spoiler because her dad was Cluemaster and she hated him."

"He abused her and her mom and he kept dragging criminals into their lives, they even kidnapped Steph once as a hostage to use against him, and Steph hated that Batman wasn't doing anything to catch her dad because he was too minor for Batman to care about, so she became Spoiler and ran around Gotham putting up clues to lead the police to her dad whenever he'd commit crimes."

Jack's eyes had started goggling out of their sockets as he stared at his son. Aside from a single raised eyebrow, Lex's expression hadn't changed, however.

"And, I don't know what happened exactly, but it must have had to do with her dad," Tim lied desperately, "because Black Mask got ahold of her somehow, as Spoiler, and he - he -"

And Tim found it was really fucking hard to say out loud what Black Mask had done.

"Hetorturedhertodeath," Tim forced out all at once, squeezing his eyes shut.

The blood was rushing in his ears and Tim felt himself sinking into the depths of the ocean again, but his head had barely dipped under the water before he felt splashes on his face as it broke back through the surface, and the splashes began to tickle and he opened his eyes and Conner was kissing his cheeks and forehead and face all over and somewhere in the background Tim's dad was muttering in horror and a strong hand was gripping Tim's shoulder that he slowly realized belonged to Lex.

"I'm so sorry, son," Lex was saying, looking absolutely aghast.

Huh. That was a funny look for a super-villain. Hadn't Lex ever tortured people to death before? Tim felt sure that he must have, at some point or another in his long and illustrious career. He'd certainly tried to kill Superman enough times, and -

"Batman did nothing?" Lex was asking in a funny voice, and Tim realized that the odd look in Lex's eyes was for Conner, not for him.

What -

Wait -

Bruce - Batman - Spoiler - Robin - Steph had been Robin. Where _was_ Batman? What had Bruce said? Tim didn't know - why didn't he know - he hadn't been listening - so how did Tim know Steph died as Spoiler - and he _did_ know that - why - how - oh, fuck.

No.

Please, no.

Steph's final text that he hadn't seen until he was frantically scrolling through his phone in the school courtyard.

_B FIRED me. Back to being Spoiler._

A giant wave of numbness washed over Tim, sweeping away the feelings he couldn't process.

"I guess Batman didn't do anything," Tim said with sand in his mouth, "because Steph died."

Lex was growling low in his throat and Conner's body felt strangely rigid as it sat wrapped around him and Tim felt like an empty surfboard getting washed out to sea.

Tim blinked and there was Gotham, hovering in front of him, but being pulled further and further towards the horizon as Tim floated in place, bobbing up and down on their expensive white sofa that they never sat on except for when Lex Luthor came over.

Something cold and smooth was being pressed to his lips.

"Take a drink," Lex said and Tim obediently swallowed, coughing a little and making a face as the brandy went down.

"I am so sorry," Lex said gravely. "Don't you worry about a thing, Tim," he said. "My media team will come up with a draft tonight and we'll get your approval on it before we release it. Do you know when the funeral is yet?" Lex was directing this to Jack.

"No," Jack said nervously.

"My team will find out," Lex said. "Conner and I will come with you and your father to Gotham to attend, of course," Lex said.

"Won't that attract more attention?" Jack said, attempting to look befuddled yet wise.

Tim knew that his dad just didn't want to go to Steph's funeral, though. And truthfully, Tim didn't want him there.

"Couldn't me and Conner go by ourselves?" Tim found himself saying because his dad wasn't actually wrong.

Nobody would care that much about Jack Drake, but if Lex Luthor showed up at Steph's funeral? Tim would be hounded on the day when he most wanted to be left alone.

"Your father and I can run interference for the press," Lex said, though. "Think of us as your bodyguards," he said kindly. "The last thing you want is to get ambushed because your teachers talked," he said. "If we don't do this press release, that's what will happen. If we plan ahead for it, we'll be able to give you the peace you need at the service."

Tim sighed but nodded. Lex was probably right. He usually was, wasn't he?

And if Lex wanted to come to Gotham to attend the funeral of Batman's recently fired Robin? As the future father-in-law of Batman's recently retired Robin?

An evil spiral of bitterness danced its way into Tim's heart.

Batman hadn't. done. anything.

Because Steph was _dead._

"I'd be glad to have you come, Lex," Tim said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Tim and Conner will be heading to Gotham next chapter, where I suspect a certain former Robin might just cross their paths.... 
> 
> Fanfiction writers are thirsty vampires and comments are our lifeblood. 🧛🩸😁  
> (But if you are mean, we will cut a bitch. Cuz we are vampires rawr 🦇)
> 
> You beautiful readers who are leaving me comments are seriously fueling my fire to write this really fast so big hearts and love!!!! Cause I really want to get this one out fast! It's burning me up 24/7 thinking about it. 
> 
> You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble. Come say hi!


	5. Fate Is A Mean-Ass Bitch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back, readers! We actually dip a little backwards in the timeline to right after Steph's death in this chapter... buckle up! It's kinda sad.

_The night before_

"Oh, shit," Crystal Brown said wearily over the low hum of her soaps she'd recorded earlier that afternoon while she'd been on a twelve-hour nursing shift at the hospital.

"Don't tell me Arthur broke out again," she said with only half a glance for Batman, who had silently slipped into her living room from the kitchen where he had picked the back door lock.

Crystal popped another handful of popcorn in her mouth and let her eyes slide back to the screen.

"Sonny never should have got with Alexis, I tell you," she said to Batman with more irritation than she'd shown over her inmate husband's potential escape. "They were so much better as friends," Crystal sighed, shaking her head as the Bat stood by stiffly without comment.

"No romantic chemistry between those two at all," Crystal continued to complain. "Which just goes to show, you're better off stickin' with your soulmate," she said, "cuz Lord knows Sonny is hot as hell but he belonged with Carly all the way."

"The _original_ one," she stressed, sounding even more disgruntled now. "Not these cheap-ass knockoffs they replaced her with. Lord, I miss the original Sonny and Carly days," she sighed dreamily before taking another handful of her microwave popcorn. "Reminds me of me and Arthur back in the good times," she smiled wistfully.

"Crystal," Batman said in his low rasp, which sounded significantly raspier than normal.

"He ain't here," Crystal said, not taking her eyes from the tv. "You can go check upstairs if you don't believe me. Or hell, sit down and wait for him if you think he's on his way," she laughed vacantly, patting the couch beside her.

Batman slowly approached her and sat down, gripping his knees with his gloved hands.

"You want some wine?" Crystal offered, holding the box out.

Batman took it from her and gently set it down on the floor.

"I need to tell you something," Batman said.

"Awright," Crystal said, still watching the tv.

Batman glanced around for the remote before standing and walking over to click the tv off.

"Hey!" Crystal said in annoyance. "I was watchin' that. What, you too good for my stories, Bats?" she snarked at him.

"Crystal," Batman began again, coming back to sit next to her and actually lifting a hand up to rub his head through his cowl before proceeding.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Crystal laughed indifferently. "You look all kinds of fucked up tonight, if ya don't mind me sayin' so."

"Stephanie's dead," Batman said, reaching out to gently hold her shoulder.

Crystal blinked at him.

"She ain't dead - why the hell would she be dead?" Crystal gaped at him. "She's not upstairs? Sometimes she stays out late with her friends," she said, getting up to her feet with a slight wobble.

Batman stood, too, and steadied her at her elbow.

"She's not upstairs, Crystal," Batman said sadly but firmly. "She died a few minutes ago at Dr. Thompkin's clinic," he said in a much hoarser voice.

That seemed to get Crystal's attention, because she stumbled and would have fallen if Batman hadn't caught her and carefully helped her sit back down on the couch.

"I'm so, so sorry," Batman said, his voice breaking as his tears started to flow again.

Crystal stared at him, her eyes getting bigger by the second and her breathing starting to increase.

"Stephie is dead?" she whispered back at him.

Batman nodded, covering his eyes for a minute with his hand.

"How - one of Arthur's enemies?" Crystal asked, her voice getting a little higher as disbelief warred with panic.

"No," Batman said. "No. One of mine," he said. "Black Mask."

"What the fuck," Crystal breathed out, before slowly starting to hyperventilate. "She don't know Black Mask, Arthur didn't even know him, what the fuck would he be doing with my Steph, she -"

"She was Spoiler," Batman interrupted her, reaching out and grasping both of Crystal's hands in his. "The vigilante?"

"The one - oh God -" Crystal said as the pieces slowly fell together in her drug-addled mind, "the one who always went after Arthur?" she said, her voice pitching to a wail at the end of her question.

Batman nodded.

"Stephie - what the hell - baby what did you do?" Crystal whimpered, panicked tears starting to fill her eyes.

"It's my fault," Batman said heavily. "I let her become Robin, but then I fired her a few days ago and she - she went back to being Spoiler, without my knowledge," he said, suddenly editing his speech, "and gang wars broke out and I was trying to deal with them and she got captured and I didn't know - I didn't know -" he ended in a hollow whisper, catching himself as a sob burst out of his throat.

"My baby girl was Robin?" Crystal said in awe, staring at Batman like he'd just told her Steph was an astronaut.

"Oh, my God," Crystal whispered, not seeming to notice the tears rolling down her cheeks. "She must have been so proud," Crystal said softly.

"She was," Batman gulped before breaking down in a torrent of tears as his shoulders shook and he bent over nearly double, his palms on his eyes, sobbing in front of the woman who he didn't feel like he had any damn right to be crying in front of, because it was his fault - _his fault_ \- that her daughter was dead, Stephanie Brown was dead, barely Jason's age, oh God, she was dead and her mom - Bruce knew what it was like to lose a child - and he numbly realized that Crystal was crying and gasping now, too, although with far less hysteria than she undoubtedly would have had by this point had she not been so knocked out on oxy.

"I'm sorry," Batman cried, reaching out and wrapping an arm around Crystal's shoulders as she cried harder and he cried, too, with her, because he couldn't stop himself.

"What the fuck happened?" Crystal sobbed out. "What did he do to my baby?" she wanted to know.

Batman's heart constricted. Oh, God…

"He tortured her," Batman was barely able to get out.

"NO!" Crystal wailed, loud and sharp and sudden and horrified. "God, no - oh my God, Steph - baby girl - baby -"

"I'm so, so sorry," Batman said again, uselessly, torn between warring desires to comfort Crystal and to get the hell out of her house, because she had to hate him, and if there was anyone else he could have asked to be here with her - but Tim was in Metropolis - oh, fuck.

_Tim._

Bruce was going to have to tell Tim that Steph was dead.

Crystal was sobbing hysterically now as Batman kept one arm wrapped around her shoulders and rubbed her head with his other hand, still crying right along with her.

"Where is she?" Crystal suddenly burst out. "Where is she? I need to see her. Oh, baby, God, my baby girl -"

"I'll drive you," Bruce said, helping her up.

He glanced around and saw a pair of flip-flops by the door, although he didn't want to think about if they might be Steph's.

"Here," he said, bending down and slipping them onto Crystal's feet before picking up the purse hanging from the coat rack.

He rooted through it looking for her keys and fished them out so he could lock the door behind them.

"Back door," he said, pulling Crystal along to the kitchen as she continued to sob helplessly.

Batman locked the door behind them and tucked the keys securely inside the purse before looping it crossways over Crystal. He led her hand in hand through the narrow alley, which the Batmobile was parked at the end of.

Crystal continued to cry as Batman buckled her in and started to drive, but he was barely pulled out of the alley before an unpleasant thought hit him and he groaned.

"Call Red Hood," Batman barked to the Batmobile's bluetooth phone.

The contact connected and rang a few times before an angry snarl answered.

"What the fuck do you want now, murderer?"

"Can you meet me back at Leslie's clinic?" Batman said with no preamble. "I'm dropping Steph's mom off there and I don't want her going in alone. Leslie doesn't want to see me again."

"No fucking surprise there," Jason growled at him.

There was only a beat of silence before he added, "I'll be there," and hung up.

Crystal was crying more softly now and looked over at Batman curiously as she wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

"Why did he call you a murderer?" she asked him.

"Because I lost track of Steph," Batman sighed. "And fired her. If I hadn't fired her, she wouldn't have felt like she had to prove herself to me, and I wouldn't have lost her, and -"

He cut off and swallowed hard.

"Why did you fire her?" Crystal asked him.

"She disobeyed a direct order," Batman growled. "I told her to stay put and she tried to come rescue me from a bad situation and got herself captured and almost killed. I was worried about continuing to train her. I didn't want her to get hurt."

"Like your other Robin," Crystal surprised him by saying.

"Yes," Batman said in shock. "Sort of. Well. Yes," he admitted, more to himself than to Crystal. "I was scared of losing her."

"Then you did the right thing," Crystal said, wiping her nose now.

"No," Batman started to argue, but Steph's mom shook her head.

"Stephie always did what she wanted to do. She had a _baby_ , did you know that?" Crystal half chuckled.

"Oh, my God, the shame that brought on our family," she said. "As if Arthur with his Cluemaster nonsense wasn't bad enough," her mom grumbled. "I gotta have a teenage daughter not only havin' unsoulbonded sex, but havin' a baby out of it."

"Look, I appreciate you tryin' to protect her," Crystal said. "When you fired her. You wanted to do right by her."

"But I did wrong," Batman insisted, guilt forcing his words out. "Steph thought she could win her way back to being Robin by starting a gang war and proving herself in it, and instead I lost track of her and then what happened to her…"

Crystal sighed.

"We do the best we can as parents," she muttered. "After that, all you can do is pray, and sometimes prayers ain't enough, big B," she said with the easy philosophy of someone who was more than a little stoned.

Batman couldn't answer.

"Why'd you call the Hood?" Crystal asked him curiously after a minute of silence.

"He found her," Batman said gently. "Brought her to Leslie's clinic and tried to save her, but -"

"Such a good boy, that Red Hood," Crystal said with sudden teary affection. "He's one of ours, you know," she said to Batman.

The Bat tipped his head at her in a question mark.

"Narrows kid," Crystal said. "Always lookin' out for us. Was he with her, when…?"

"Yes," Batman said. "Me, too, at the end. And Leslie."

"Good," Crystal said quietly. "That's good," she sniffed.

Red Hood was leaning against his bike when they pulled up to the clinic, wearing his domino with his helmet resting on his bike seat. The clinic lights were still on inside and Bruce mentally groaned to himself. Fuck it, Leslie had kicked him out and then she had to deal with Steph's body all by herself, alone, without support, and that was his fault, too, and -

Crystal was already getting out of the car. Batman got out, too, but stayed by the driver's side of the Batmobile.

"He said you found my baby," Crystal was saying to Red Hood, surprising the hell out of Jason by coming right up to him, guns and all, and wrapping him up in a tight, tight hug.

"I did," Jason said back to her, gripping her just as hard. "But not soon enough. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry -"

"You made it so Stephie didn't have to die alone," Mrs. Brown said, stepping back and reaching a shaking hand up to pat his cheek. "That's a lot."

"She said to tell you she was sorry," Jason burst out, his tears starting to fall again, too.

"She did?" Crystal's voice trembled and she looked frail, so frail, Bruce thought to himself, standing there alone at the edge of an abyss that no parent should ever have to navigate and one that he knew himself oh, so well.

"First thing," Jason said, omitting the very first thing, which was Robin's message for B that her mentor's identity was safe, but fuck if he was gonna tell her mom that part.

"Bats said Black Mask did it," Crystal said suddenly, gripping Red Hood's forearm. "Is he…?"

"Dead," Jason spat out. "And everyone there."

Crystal sighed in relief even as Batman's shoulders tensed. Jason met his eyes from across the hood of the Batmobile in an angry stare, daring him to say anything.

"Such a good boy," Crystal was repeating to Red Hood, as she'd said to Bats. "One of ours," she said again with an even deeper satisfaction. "I told him so," she added, tossing her head backwards to indicate Batman and prompting a sudden grin out of Bruce's youngest son.

"Narrows born-n-raised don't take shit from nobody," Crystal said, nodding to herself more than anyone.

"Nope," Red Hood agreed, catching Batman's eye again defiantly.

Batman sighed.

"I'll leave you with Red Hood, then, Crystal," Batman said, wanting to get the fuck out of there so he could go home and break the news to Alfred and cry for the next century over his second dead Robin.

"Hey - Batman," Crystal said, turning around to face him before he got back into the Batmobile. "Don't be too hard on yourself. I know you was doing your best for her."

"Fuck that," Red Hood suddenly snarled, making Crystal jerk back towards him in surprise. "He got her killed. He fired her and then lost her. He -"

"He did his damn best," Crystal cut him off, smacking his arm hard and causing Jason to shut up in his surprise.

He hadn't been smacked like that since he was a kid and it made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside, even as he stood blinking at the angry mom in front of him that wasn't his, no, but she was a Narrows mom and, well, that was pretty damn similar.

"You ain't a parent, I take it?" Crystal was saying to Red Hood.

"No…" he said slowly.

"One day you'll learn," she said. "This shit ain't easy, buster, no matter what it looks like from the outside."

If Bruce hadn't felt so wretchedly devastated, he would have laughed at the look on Jason's face.

"Just pray you never have to learn the hard way like me and Batsy over there had to," Crystal continued to lecture him. "Sometimes you can't save your kids and it ain't your fault, because Fate can be a real bitch."

Batman and Red Hood froze.

Crystal didn't seem to notice.

The clinic door opened and Leslie came out, a look of suspicion on her face before she saw the middle-aged woman in front of Red Hood.

"Oh," Leslie said softly. "Mrs. Brown?"

"That's me," Crystal sighed.

"I'm Dr. Thompkins," Leslie said. "I did everything I could for Steph, but her wounds were too severe. I'm so sorry," she said with the practiced sympathy of someone who has said the same words too many times, to too many families.

"Can I see her?" Crystal sniffed and Leslie said, "Of course," but paused.

"Her wounds are quite widespread and it will be distressing, I'm afraid," she said. "She was extensively tortured."

Crystal sniffed but bravely nodded.

"I can handle it," she said. "She's my baby."

"I'll come in with you," Red Hood said, picking up his helmet and wrapping a supportive arm around Crystal's waist, noticing, as Bruce had, her faltering gait.

"Batman, you ain't comin?" Crystal said, already having forgotten the overheard phone conversation on the way there.

"Batman is no longer welcome here," Leslie said frostily in a tone meant for the Bat and not for Crystal.

"Oh, well, that ain't nice," Crystal mumbled resentfully.

Leslie stopped in her tracks and stared at her.

"What isn't nice is allowing children to risk their lives by becoming vigilantes!" Leslie said in shocked disbelief.

"You ever met my Steph before?" Crystal said.

"Just tonight," Leslie said tightly.

"Yeah, well, you try tellin' my kid what she could and couldn't do," Crystal managed to snort with a touch of humor. "Or any kid, for that matter," she said. "Especially in this damn town."

Leslie pressed her lips together tightly and made eye contact with Batman, who stared back at her under the streetlights with haunted, grief-stricken eyes.

Leslie was not prone to cursing, but Jason swore he could see the profanities ripping through her mind as she gritted her teeth and said, slowly, "If it would comfort you to have Batman come in with us, Mrs. Brown, he can come in. For now," Leslie warned him with a foreboding glare.

"Will you, Batsy?" Crystal pleaded, looking back over her shoulder.

He nodded, not trusting his voice, and stepped around the car to walk beside her.

The quartet of adults was silent as they walked through the hallway to the exam room where Steph still lay on the table. Jason felt his stomach start to knot with nausea as they approached the doorway, and Bruce didn't look much better, if Jason cared to admit it. Leslie looked bitterly, quietly, resigned.

"Stephanie!" Crystal wailed as soon as she saw her daughter, rushing to her side and collapsing over her in grief and tears and incoherent screams as she stroked Steph's hair and hugged her and rocked her back and forth.

Bruce had to turn away, his eyes blinking rapidly, because it wasn't Steph who he suddenly saw before him.

It was a younger, smaller Jason.

And maybe the older, bigger Jason hated him right now, but he was alive to hate him, and Bruce tried to concentrate on that and wipe the other images from his mind, of a warehouse and rubble and a burned uniform and a beaten and broken and bloody body.

Leslie, for her part, had come over to wrap her arms around Jason's waist in a side hug of support as the two of them let Crystal experience her grief. Jason glanced at Bruce uncomfortably before looking back down to Leslie, who met his eyes knowingly and sighed.

What had Crystal said?

Sometimes Fate was a bitch, Jason thought. But sometimes she was a malicious motherfucker, too, tormenting a child with death and a parent with a devastating loss, only to inexplicably raise back up the once dead kid, except not quite all the way, because his mind had been mush until Talia had eventually dunked him in the Lazarus Pit, and -

Wait.

Fate could go fuck herself, Jason decided. He had a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we got a little timey-wimey here... the story will twist and weave around a bit with the timeline. Cass is showing up very soon! Maybe even next chapter.
> 
> Fanfiction writers are thirsty vampires and comments are our lifeblood. 😁  
> (But if you are mean, we will cut a bitch. Cuz we are vampires rawr )
> 
> You beautiful readers who are leaving me comments are seriously encouraging me so thankyouthankyouthankyou! I am obsessed with getting this story out of my brain onto paper. 
> 
> Remember you can subscribe to the story if you want email notifications when the new chapters post. This one isn't on any schedule except AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.
> 
> You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble. Come say hi!


	6. Drake vs. Drake

"You're sure it's no trouble for Tim to spend the night?" Jack was hemming and hawing to Lex in an attempt to cover up the relief he felt at letting someone else handle his son's latest teenaged crisis for the next twenty-four hours.

"No trouble at all," Lex said smoothly, without allowing the slightest hint of the disgust he felt for Jack Drake to seep through his kindly patronizing tone.

He'd deal with Jack the same way he dealt with his dates; by feeding up beautiful lies mingled with slick manipulation. Better for everyone. Fewer hurt feelings and less mess for Lex to clean up after getting what he wanted.

And what Lex wanted at this particular moment was to whisk his son's soulmate out of the boy's evidently abysmal homelife into the loving parental situation he should have had all along. Lex Luthor was many things, most of them bad, but he was a superior father and he knew it. And he'd be damned if he let poor Timothy Drake spend one more second supervised by the man whose parenting was barely better than the Man of Steel's, and that was saying something.

A steel heart, that's what Superman and Jack Drake had in common, Lex thought idly to himself. And Kal-El dared to call _Lex_ the super-villain! Well, Lex had shown him -

His musings were interrupted by Conner and Tim reappearing in the hallway, Conner carrying Tim's loaded up duffel bag with ease as he swung their intertwined hands together.

"Well, son," Jack said awkwardly to Tim, fumbling for the good-bye that would impress Lex the most. "Call me if you need anything," Jack settled upon, before reaching forward and patting an awkward hand on Tim's back.

Conner rolled his eyes to Lex's barely noticeable, but answering eye twitch that his son had long ago learned denoted deep but secretive amusement. His dad was the best, Conner thought contentedly, and he was so glad that Dad had insisted on Tim spending the night with them before Conner could even bring it up. His Dad was no fool. He saw right through Jack Drake and was as pissed at him as Conner was.

"You ready, Timmy?" Conner asked his soulmate.

Tim started to nod, but then paused.

"Um," he said. "Can I meet you downstairs?" he asked Conner and Lex. "I have something I need to say to my dad in private."

"Of course," Lex answered with an approving gleam in his eye. "Take your time, son," he said, clapping a warm hand on Tim's shoulder before Conner kissed his temple and followed his dad out of the apartment.

"Timothy…?" Jack said hesitantly after the door had closed behind the Luthors.

"Do _not_ tell Lex I was Robin," Tim growled in a deep, authoritative voice that actually made his father take a step back.

"Son!" Jack gasped in surprise. "Why would I -"

"I mean it, Dad," Tim said, drawing his brows even tighter together and crossing his arms over his chest. "You tell Lex, and he'll kill me. And then where will your precious merger be?"

Jack stared at him with jaw open.

"Kill you?" he stuttered out after a second. "Why on earth would Lex kill you -"

"Because he's a super-villain, Dad!" Tim yelled in frustration, throwing his hands up in the air before running them through his disheveled hair. "He's one of the Justice League's biggest enemies. Why do you think Superman lives in Metropolis?" Tim snarked.

Jack's eyes were round. He tried to laugh it off but it came out more like a weak cough.

"The Justice League…?" he said feebly. "Lex? Son, I really don't think -"

"And you didn't think Bruce was Batman, either, did you?" Tim snarled at him.

That shut his father up real quick and made his mouth tighten into a flat line.

"If you want to lose your heir, and maybe even get killed yourself, then by all means, tell Lex who I was. Or who Bruce is," Tim hissed at him. "Otherwise, keep your damn mouth shut."

"Timothy!" Jack Drake gaped at him.

Tim glared back at him with cold eyes, arms still firmly drawn over his chest.

"If it's going to be too difficult for you, I can ask the Martian Manhunter to come down from the Watchtower and erase your memories," Tim said in a nasty voice.

Tim had never met J'onn, or any of the other Justice League heroes, for that matter - not even Superman - and he doubted that they'd take orders from a former Robin, but his father didn't know that.

Jack Drake was drawing himself up straighter, however, and giving Tim a slightly malevolent glare of his own.

"It seems to me that the one you ought to be worried about keeping your secret is yourself," he said back to his son. "You could barely answer about how that Brown girl died. I'm amazed you were able to salvage the situation."

"Her _name_ ," Tim screamed at him, "is _Stephanie_."

"I'm sure it will look lovely on her tombstone," Jack sneered. "If her mother can afford one."

Tim gasped and stumbled back, tears filling his eyes.

"Is this what you wanted for yourself?" Jack persisted, crossing his own arms now and giving his son a refined, bored look. "To die before finishing high school? Because that's exactly the path you were headed down with _Bruce_ ," he mocked. "The psycho couldn't stop at losing his own son but had to go stealing other people's children to kill off, too."

"You ought to thank me for rescuing you from that twisted bastard," Jack scoffed. "I hope you'll take this girl's death as a warning, Timothy, about what your fate would have been had your father who loves you not intervened -"

Jack staggered back and collapsed to the floor, barely catching himself to slow his fall on the back of the couch as Tim's fist met his face.

"You don't love me," Tim said flatly. "You love Drake Industries. That's why I know you'll keep your mouth shut," he said sourly as he turned and stalked to the door, slamming it shut behind him.

Downstairs, Conner and Lex and a woman in a driver's uniform were all standing on the sidewalk waiting for him. Conner looked especially worried, for some reason.

"I didn't mean to take so long," Tim apologized.

"It was no problem at all, son," Lex said kindly. "Did you get some things off your chest?"

"Yeah," Tim muttered, rubbing a hand against the back of his head.

"Good," Lex hummed. "This is my driver and personal bodyguard, Mercy Graves," Lex introduced him.

"Hello," Tim said politely, reaching out to shake her hand and taking note of her strong grip, which he sensed she was just as politely holding back on.

"Hello, Tim," Mercy said with a friendly smile, though. "I'm pleased to meet you, although very sorry to learn of your loss," she said.

"Thank you," Tim said in surprise.

Although he really shouldn't be so surprised at this point in his life that his father's lack of compassion was the outlier, and not the norm, for the human race. Still, it was pleasantly unexpected to be so surrounded by kindness all of a sudden.

"Shall we go?" Lex said. "Your bag is in the trunk."

"Ok," Tim said, and Lex climbed into the limo first, to the backseat, Tim noted with a slight smirk which Conner returned before following his father in. Tim sat next to Conner and leaned his head down on his boyfriend's shoulder with a grateful sigh as Mercy shut the door after him.

Conner reached his arm up and put it around Tim's shoulders, pulling him in closer and picking up Tim's hand with his left one.

"Thank you for inviting me over tonight," Tim said to Lex.

"I wouldn't dream of leaving you alone with your father," Lex said, his mouth quirking like he'd sucked on a lemon, and Tim giggled.

Lex looked faintly startled, but he smiled back at Tim, even though Conner was frowning with protective dismay.

"Tim can move in with us for good, right, Dad?" Conner asked.

"Absolutely," Lex said with decision. "Assuming you want to, Tim?" he asked.

"Yes!" Tim spluttered out, his eyes going wide and happy as all concerns over super-villainy fled from his mind in his joy at the proposition of no longer living with his dad.

"Really? I can?" Tim said, feeling a tiny bit of the tonnage that was weighing his heart down start to tumble off.

"You can," Lex nodded firmly. "I have no sympathy for shit fathers," he growled, his mouth tensing as he spoke.

Conner looked slightly troubled at Lex's words, too, Tim noticed, and actually let go of Tim's hand for a second to reach out and squeeze his dad's reassuringly.

"You're the best dad ever," Conner said sincerely, and Tim found more tears filling his eyes.

Partly over the fact that he and his own dad didn't have that type of relationship, yeah - but it was Bruce and Tim's relationship that was coming to mind now, and it hurt. Bruce had fathered Tim better than Jack ever had, and Tim had been sure that Bruce cared about each and every one of his Robins.

So how come Batman had fired Steph? And then left her alone to die?

It didn't make sense - it didn't - and it was horrible - and Tim had so wanted to come home to Bruce and now he didn't know what he wanted, except that it resembled what Conner and Lex had and he was crying again and Conner was wrapping him up tighter in his arms and soothing him and Tim figured that Conner probably assumed he was crying over Jack, so he just snuggled into his boyfriend and let his tears out.

When they got to LexCorp, Mercy pulled into the underground garage and clicked a remote for a private, walled off section on the first level.

"This is our own private elevator to the penthouse," Lex explained as they got out of the car, "as well as a secure bay for my personal vehicles," he said.

Tim noticed there were three limos, including the one they had arrived in, but no fancier cars such as Wayne Manor boasted. Bruce had quite the collection of sports cars and luxury vehicles that Brucie Wayne frequently drove around town, but it seemed that Lex felt less of a need to show off.

Well, that and Lex probably actually got real work done in his car while Mercy drove him around Metropolis, Tim thought with a quickly suppressed giggle. Lex Luthor was a businessman first and foremost, even before being a villain, and he wouldn't be one to waste time on senselessly parading himself before the masses.

"Welcome to your new home, Tim," Lex said when he and the two boys entered his penthouse, having left Mercy to attend to the cars down below.

"Oh, wow," Tim breathed out, taking in the view, which was way better than the one that he and his dad had in their still very expensive suite, but they could see the harbor and the park from Lex's windows, and Lex's furniture was way nicer, too - actual antiques and unique pieces instead of carefully-selected-to-be-inoffensive mass-produced luxury items, and the kitchen was bigger, and the seating areas, and there were a lot more rooms from the look of it, because Lex's penthouse apparently took up the entire top floor of the LexCorp building.

"Now," Lex said, shrugging out of his suit jacket before carefully hanging it in the coat closet, "you and Conner are welcome to share a bedroom, or you can have your own. You don't have to decide right now," he added with a smile, "but we have plenty of space either way."

"Ok," Tim said, turning a little red, although Conner looked not only completely unabashed but totally delighted by his father's words.

"Come and see my room first," Conner said, tugging Tim forward, "and we can talk about it."

"Ok," Tim said again, letting himself be pulled along.

"Dinner's at seven," Lex called after them.

"Oh, this is cool," Tim said when they entered Conner's den, papered with band posters and funny headlines he'd cut out from newspapers and random strings of lights and old vinyl records and such a mishmosh of ephemera that Tim couldn't begin to take it all in.

"Thanks," Conner beamed at him, lowering Tim's duffel bag to the floor. "I do have a lot of clothes," he said, throwing his closet door open and showing off very full racks of the craziest clothes Tim had ever seen, all of which seemed to have been foraged at thrift stores, "but I saw on TV how to fold clothes up so they fit in dressers better," Conner said, "or I bet Dad would expand my room into the next bedroom over to give us another closet," he said.

"If you want to stay in here, that is," Conner added a little more bashfully, glancing down at his boots.

"I do," Tim smiled, his heart going flippity-flop.

Conner let out a happy squeal and tackled Tim, flying further than it seemed like they should be able to until they landed on his bed with a far more gentle thump than Tim thought he should have been slammed to the mattress with underneath his excited boyfriend, but Conner was kissing him and all thoughts of gravity and physics flew out of Tim's head just as easily.

Tim's stomach was fluttering in the most unusual but delightful way when there was a knock on the bedroom door. Conner groaned but got up and helped Tim up, too, before going to answer it for Lex, who was very patiently waiting to be let in instead of bursting in like Tim's dad used to do until Tim had started locking his door, which used to also get him a scolding, but his dad had no respect for privacy.

"Tim's going to share my bedroom," Conner happily announced as Lex entered, although his voice trailed off in a most unConnerlike fashion and his eyes got big when he saw what Lex had in his hands.

"Now, boys," Lex said calmly, setting the bottle of lube and box of condoms down on top of Conner's cluttered dresser.

Tim felt his face go beet red and Conner's was actually reddening, too, this time.

"Sit, sit," Lex chuckled, shooing them towards the bed as he took a seat in Conner's desk chair.

Conner inched his way back towards Tim and they both sat gingerly on the very edge of the bed, with enough room in-between them for not only Jesus, but Mary and Joseph, too.

"Now," Lex repeated, seemingly unperturbed. "I want to make very clear, boys, that neither one of you is to be pressuring the other for sex before they're ready. You're both young and it's perfectly normal to want to wait. I expect both of you to respect that in each other, if that is the case."

Tim was sure his face was darkening to tomato rouge, and while he didn't dare to swivel his eyes to look at Conner, he could practically feel the waves of heat emanating from his boyfriend's cheeks.

"However," Lex continued, "given that you're soulmates, it's also fine to have sex whenever you're both ready," he said, "and I would rather you be prepared. I do _not_ ," he stressed, "want to know your sexual histories or lack thereof," he said with a slight shudder.

"If you're both virgins and you plan to be monogamous, you don't need to use condoms," Lex said, "but here they are, just in case," he indicated.

Tim wasn't sure when he'd last taken a breath and he felt almost positive that Conner was in the same boat. Jack Drake was slowly rising in Tim's estimation, he had to admit, because Jack would have died rather than give Tim the Sex Talk, with or without his soulmate present.

"Lube is absolutely essential for anal sex," Lex calmly went on - Conner made an involuntary strangled squeak - "and, if you lack experience, do yourselves both a favor and research online how to do it properly - _not_ on porn sites, which are wildly inaccurate, unless they're educational videos," Lex rolled on with nary a twitch of discomfort, "because your assholes will be in for a world of hurt if one of you tries to stick a dick in there without loosening them up first."

Conner's strangled squeak became a full-blown wail of horror as he flopped backwards on the bed, covering his ears.

"Enough!" he yelled. "Dad! Please! Stop," he begged Lex.

"Your ass will be inclined to thank me one day," Lex said mildly and without offense as he thankfully stood up, his parental lecture finally finished. "Oh, and all the rooms in the penthouse are sound-proofed," he said with a little wink as he turned to leave.

He pulled the door shut after him and Tim finally took a breath which quickly turned into a drawn-out and pitiful horror-stricken moan as he covered his face with his hands and fell down backwards next to Conner.

"Did that just happen?" Tim mumbled to his boyfriend, peeking out through his fingers with massive amounts of leftover embarrassment.

"Unfortunately," Conner whined back. "Oh, my God, dude. I take back everything I said about my dad being cool."

"My dad would totally never have done that. Ever," Tim agreed. "Although," he frowned, "my dad would never even have let you spend the night, so I guess he's still the loser," he grumbled.

"Your dad really is awful, babe," Conner said with empathy, some of the angst leaving his face at the welcome change of topic as he scootched over closer next to Tim and ran a gentle hand down his boyfriend's face.

"Yeah," Tim mumbled, not wanting to cry again, but still feeling like it. "I, um, I punched him," he said, ducking his head.

"Shut up!" Conner exclaimed with glee. "Really?" he asked. "Timmy, that's awesome! Way to go, babe!" he said, pulling Tim into a proud kiss before leaning back and pausing.

"He must have said something really heinous, huh?" Conner asked sympathetically.

"Yeah," Tim said, sniffing. "About Steph."

"If you messed his face up, he might not be able to come with us to the funeral," Conner said philosophically.

"Here's hoping," Tim sighed.

* * *

Clark Kent was generally not in the habit of eavesdropping on his fellow reporters at _The Daily Planet_.

Over the course of his life, he'd learned to tune out and filter the abundance of background conversations his over-sensitive Kryptonian ears could pick up, and the juicy tidbits of gossip and news flying around the press room weren't usually tantalizing enough to disrupt his concentration. Any legitimate news would be published soon enough as it was, and Clark preferred his peace of mind over getting the latest stories a few hours earlier than the rest of the world.

Until he heard Lex Luthor's name, that was.

His super-hearing perked right up.

"- scoop, Perry!" Cat Grant, society editor-in-chief, was exclaiming with glee. "Premarked, can you believe?" she said. "Two such prominent families; Conner Luthor and Tim Drake. It's absolutely wild! Lex is giving me an exclusive interview with the boys tomorrow morning. He wants it published in tomorrow's evening edition when they're gonna drop their press release."

Clark froze.

"That's generous," Perry was commenting around his cigar. "What's the angle?"

"The Drake boy's best friend just got murdered down in Gotham," Cat said, and Clark's heart began to race. "She was a vigilante of all things -" and Clark's heart almost stopped in his chest until Cat said, "Spoiler," instead of Robin, and Clark slowly began to breathe again.

"Bad business," Cat was saying, "and she'd had a baby as a teen mom, too, and Lex wants to spin her in a positive light for the boy's sake. I don't see any harm in that," Cat was saying, "girl's gone now, anyway, and it's an easy way to buy us a lot of favor with Lex. Maybe get Lois a scoop the next time something big with LexCorp rolls around."

"I love it. Make it happen," Perry said back to Cat as unusual beads of sweat began to drip down Clark's back.

He had to call Bruce.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More to come! So much love to you beautiful commenters, you keep me going! 
> 
> Fanfiction writers are thirsty vampires and comments are our lifeblood. 🧛🩸😁  
> (But if you are mean, we will cut a bitch. Cuz we are vampires rawr 🦇)
> 
> You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble. Come say hi!


	7. Luthor vs. El

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: child abuse (Cadmus to Conner) 
> 
> This chapter takes place three years before Chapter 1. (Yeah, I sat down after I wrote this and worked out the timeline and ages and chronology properly and it's 3 years, not 2. The change won't affect anyone except people who like to have the math add up right. Like me. Ahem.) 
> 
> You guys totally need to go check out the fic "Never Meet Your Heroes" by hey_its_lyn and give her some love. 
> 
> She has this awesome set-up where the JL turns against Conner and Lex swoops in as a good dad and I just SQUEEEEEE and this chapter was a lot inspired by her awesome fic, although I took mine in different directions. I just like me a good dad Lex, what can I say? And every good dad needs an evil dad foil, amirite? Sorry, Clark, but it's your own damn fault......

_Three years ago_

"Luthor, it's Lawton," Deadshot said into the burner phone.

"Floyd," Lex said back in surprise. "Don't tell me someone's taken out a contract on me. I'll be very displeased," he cautioned.

"Shut up, man," Floyd said impatiently. "It ain't like that this time. Cadmus has got a kid locked away in their Area 57 base. A teenager, I guess. Waller called him a clone, like he wasn't even a person. Said he was an experimental weapon."

"And that concerns me how…?" Lex asked.

"He's yours," Floyd said.

Lex paused.

"What do you mean, he's mine?" he asked Deadshot.

"I mean," Floyd said, "except for the black hair and blue eyes, the kid is the spittin' image of you."

"What the hell?" Lex mused.

"Oh, that ain't even the best part," Floyd said heavily. "He's half Superman, too."

"What, now?" Lex said, his eyebrows raising to the sky.

"Boy's Kryptonian," Deadshot said. "Heat vision, flies, and that's just what I saw. Waller was none too pleased I was gettin' up in her face about him being there. But he's a _kid_ , man," Deadshot said. "You gotta get him out of there."

"I will," Lex said immediately. "He's a prisoner, I take it?"

"Fuck, yeah," Floyd grunted. "They got him in a shielded room, tons of kryptonite weapons around, making him run drills and tests and all this shit. Kid's miserable as all hell, Luthor," Floyd said. "They're treating him like an animal. Or worse. Like a machine," he said. "Like a machine they'll beat the shit out of with green cattle prods if he doesn't follow orders."

"And you really think he's half mine?" Luthor asked.

"I do," Floyd said. "Bitch called him a weapon, right? Now you ask me, you want to build a living super weapon, what's better than combining the strongest man on the planet with the smartest man on the planet?"

Lex grunted.

"But I got a DNA sample you can check," Floyd added.

"How did you manage that?" Lex asked, impressed.

Floyd gave a slight chuckle.

"The kid managed it," he said. "Boy is smart like his daddy, Lex. I bullied Waller into letting me into the chamber to talk to him," Deadshot said.

"Waller doesn't bully," Lex said.

"A wrist magnum to the head held by a prisoner with a death wish works wonders," Floyd said dryly. "Anyway, I get in there and start asking the kid how they're treating him, if he needs help - you know what he does? Fucker flies up to me and spits in my face. Huge fucking wad of saliva," Floyd chuckled appreciatively.

"Oh, that was clever," Lex hummed. "You collected it, I assume?"

"Hell, yeah," Floyd said. "Dabbed it off with my coat cuff and cut that piece off and sealed it up in a plastic baggie as soon as I got home."

"Good," Lex grunted. "Where are you? Can you bring it to me? Don't let it out of your sight until it's in my hands."

"I'm in Sedona, but I can't leave town, man," Floyd said. "Waller's got me on her Suicide Squad, got a bomb in my head and trackers implanted fuck knows where."

"Oh, shit," Lex said with startled feeling. "Sorry to hear that, Floyd."

"Yeah, no shit," Floyd grumbled.

"I'll come to you," Lex said, thinking out loud. "The bomb, it's operated remotely, I take it?"

"Yeah," Floyd said. "That asshat Rick Flag and Waller both have kill switches, and I don't know who else."

"That's not a problem," Lex said. "If the bomb's remote activated, it's electronic. I'll have Star Sapphire teleport in with a localized EMP. She'll bring you back here to Metropolis as soon as it's neutralized and my neurosurgeon will get it out before it reactivates. The trackers, too."

"Thanks, man," Floyd said in surprise. "I'll go in with you to get the kid out, in that case."

"I appreciate it," Lex said. "I'll be damned if Amanda Waller is going to steal my DNA and manufacture a child - my _son_ ," Lex said in wonder.

"Where are you gonna stash him once we get him?" Floyd asked. "Cause Waller's gonna be all over your ass. You ain't gonna be able to keep your hands clean with this one, Lex. She's gonna nail you to the wall."

"I don't think so," Lex said thoughtfully. "DNA gives me parental rights. Amanda Waller might have the US Government backing her, but I have lawyers," he said with a malevolent chuckle.

* * *

Deep inside the secret Cadmus base in the heart of Area 57, Experiment 13 was sitting glumly on a thin bunk in a tiny cell flooded with the red solar lights that the Terrors used to neutralize his powers whenever he wasn't being called upon to perform for them.

Today had been bad, worse than usual. They were testing his strength against lasers and had battered him again and again with more and more force, just to see how much he could take before getting slammed backwards into the reinforced wall of the training room.

His chest still hurt. Not to mention his back and his head.

Experiment 13 didn't lie down on his bunk but sat with knees drawn up to his chest, head sunk low and resting on them. He didn't understand this. He didn't understand anything. How he had suddenly blinked to consciousness in what he now knew to call the Lab, where he was met with cheers and adulation.

The first part of his training hadn't been awful. The mental work, teaching him to speak and to read, and how to identify all types of wondrous objects that didn't exist in his cell or the Lab or the Training Room. Testing his intelligence, how fast he could learn - and the Terrors seemed to think he was quite fast, indeed, although the lessons seemed arduously difficult to Experiment 13.

He hadn't known to call them the Terrors, back then. They'd been full of happy smiles and proud looks - not for him, but for each other. Still, they'd been pleased with him and nobody had hurt him and although he felt scared and confused and some empty feeling that he hadn't yet learned a word for, his life hadn't been that bad.

Not like it was now.

Experiment 13 couldn't hold back a small sniff as a tear rolled down his cheek where it rested on his knees, hidden by his arms. Why had they bothered teaching him about trees and sunshine and weather and cities and buses and lakes and birds if they were never going to let him see any of those things?

If all they were going to do was hurt him, again and again, and force him to punch and destroy and fly and burn? The first time they'd hurt him, Experiment 13 had lashed out towards his captors, only to be met by the most sickeningly painful green ray. Kryptonite, they'd laughingly called it.

Now, they taunted him with it on a daily basis, not only if he looked as though he might rebel, but if he didn't perform his tasks quickly enough, or efficiently enough, or if they thought he could do better even though he'd already done his best the last twenty times they'd asked.

Experiment 13 hated it here and he hated all of the Terrors, but he hated the one they called Waller most of all. She was the cruelest, the one most likely to pull out the kryptonite even if he'd been working really hard. Motivation, she called it, wanting to see how hard he'd fight to avoid being poisoned by its green death.

That strange bearded man had hated her, too. Experiment 13 could tell. He'd lifted his gun right up to Waller's head as he shouted at her about a child being kept prisoner - him, Experiment 13 had slowly realized the man meant. He hadn't known he was a child.

They'd taught him the word for child, but he was an experiment, not a child. A clone, he'd heard the Terrors say sometimes, made from the DNA of the planet's two most powerful beings - an alien called Superman and a genius named Lexluthor. Experiment 13 understood DNA. They had explained it to him back in his better days, in his brain lessons.

That was why when the angry man finally stalked into the Training Room, having won his battle with Waller by claiming not to fear death - Experiment 13 had quickly formed a plan. He had been alive for ages, now, and had never once seen either Superman or Lexluthor, which made his super brain wonder if perhaps these superbeings did not know that Experiment 13 existed.

Surely, if they knew, they would have been curious to see how the experiment they had created was performing. Waller visited him at least two or three times a week to check on his progress.

So what if the superbeings didn't know? Would they be displeased to know that a weapon as powerful as Experiment 13 existed and that he had been created from their own DNA? Perhaps they would want to take Experiment 13 and use him for their own purposes instead of letting Waller keep him for herself.

Experiment 13 didn't know if the superbeings might treat him better than the Terrors, but he rationalized that they could not possibly treat him worse. So, when the strange man had come into the Training Room, and _looked_ at Experiment 13, really looked at him in the eyes and asked him questions about his wellbeing and had been worried for him - well, Experiment 13 had spit in his face.

Waller was pleased, of course, thinking it was proof of his obedience to the Terrors. But the man had raised an eyebrow and then smirked at him and wiped the spit off most carefully with his sleeve.

"Guess you're all right, then," the man had said to him, but he had an intelligent gleam in his eye that gave Experiment 13 hope.

That had been days ago, though, and nothing spectacular had happened. He was still being punished and trained and battered with lasers and his chest hurt tonight, yes, but that wasn't why the tears were rolling down his cheeks.

Experiment 13 lifted his head when he heard the shouts and gunfire. Quite close by, of course, since his powers were being suppressed at the moment by his cell's red lights. He stared in wonder as a pack of oddly dressed people burst into the detention chamber. A woman and man in purple, an albino man in a black top hat, a bald man in a light green jumpsuit and - the strange bearded man who'd argued with Waller.

The bald one locked eyes with Experiment 13 and inhaled sharply.

"Son," he said to him, "we're going to get you out of here. Sit tight. Polaris," he barked at the man in purple.

"On it," the man said, raising his arm.

The forcefield surrounding the Experiment's cell crackled and fizzled out and then the cell bars were being pulled apart by an invisible force.

"Can you stand?" the bald man was asking him.

"He's hurt," the bearded man grunted.

"I've got him," the purple lady said, and suddenly Experiment 13 was being pulled forward by a purple ray.

"Get down," the bearded man shouted suddenly, and he was raising his arms and firing, and the albino man was tapping his staff on the floor and an inky blackness filled the room, and the purple ray was expanding to hold the whole group of them together in it and they were floating through the base, twisting and turning through corridors and tunnels and flying up stairwells, past downed guards, most of them dead, it looked like, based on the blood.

A few shots bounced harmlessly off the purple forcefield as the lady controlling it confidently steered them through the maze of the sterile metal monstrosity that was so much bigger than Experiment 13 had ever imagined, confined as he was to a few small areas in it, and suddenly they were bursting out of a door and Experiment 13 was gasping, because he'd never seen the sky before.

And even though it was distorted by the purple shield, it was there and he could see it and there were clouds and a bird, a huge bird with white and black striped wings was flying overhead and then there was a tug and a flash and they were inside another building, but a much nicer one than the one they had left.

Experiment 13 ignored the carpet, although it was a novelty, and the soft furniture, bigger and fluffier than he'd ever seen, and the fancy pretty objects sprinkled around the room, because the building had _windows_.

So many windows, and Experiment 13 could see the sky right out of them, and the clouds, and the purple haze was gone, now, and he was stumbling forward to look outside, pressing his face up against the glass and staring in wonder.

 _Trees_. He saw trees! And grass! And… water? A lake? Or, that other word… a pond, maybe? And streets and people and cars and buses and when he ran to the next set of windows he gasped because there was an _ocean_ , it had to be, with huge waves and boats and bigger ships and other birds, white ones, and he was crying harder than he'd ever cried after the Terrors were done with him.

"Poor kid," he heard the bearded man mutter, but the Experiment couldn't stop crying and staring and longing, longing to run outside - _outside_ \- to touch it all and breathe it in and find out what grass felt like, and what birds sounded like, and what a hot dog smelled like, and -

The bald man was standing beside him, now.

"Son," he said.

He had said that word in the cell, too. Son. Sons belonged to fathers. Experiment 13 had learned this.

"I'm Lexluthor," the bald man said, and the boy gasped and turned to him.

"You came," he said in wonder.

"I came," Lexluthor said. "As soon as I knew. I didn't know. I'm sorry," he said, and his eyes were wet, too, and looked… sad? Was that the right word?

The Terrors had taught him emotions and feelings with pictures and faces but Experiment 13 wasn't sure how to match the pictures with Lexluthor's face because he looked sad, yes, in his eyes, but he was smiling, too, and reaching a slow hand out towards his face.

"You really do look like me," he said as he touched the boy's cheek more gently than anyone had ever touched him before.

"I do?" the boy said.

"So much," Lexluthor said. "This is Deadshot," he said, turning and indicating the bearded man.

"You can call me Floyd," the man said, and he was smiling and looked happy as he came over. "Glad we crossed paths, kid," Floyd Deadshot said. "I hate to think what they've been doing to you in there."

"Hurting me," Experiment 13 said softly, looking down towards the ground, which was covered with wood planks, all shiny and polished, imagine that!

Lexluthor was growling low and deep and angry in his throat and Floyd Deadshot was muttering what the boy knew were curse words and the other three people were grumbling their agreement.

"Damn shame," the albino man said, shaking his head.

"This is Shade," Lexluthor said, introducing him. "Manipulator of shadows. And this is Starsapphire and Doctor Polaris."

"Hi, kid," Starsapphire said, and her face definitely looked sad, the boy decided.

"Glad we could get you out," Doctor Polaris said. "Any kid of Lex's is a friend of mine," he added.

Experiment 13 didn't know what to say to that, but he felt something warm inside his chest, almost like when he activated his heat vision but not as intense.

"Will Waller find me here?" the boy asked. "She has kryptonite."

Lexluthor hissed.

"Fuckin' bitch," Floyd Deadshot spat.

"We're all going to stay to protect you until Lex works the legal situation out," Starsapphire said.

Experiment 13 didn't know what that meant, exactly, but he understood the part about them protecting him, and he felt… glad.

* * *

They had some clothes for him, softer than the coarse jumpsuit he'd had to wear in the base.

"I just guessed your size," Floyd Deadshot was saying to him, showing him the pants with the drawstring and stretchy waistband and the soft, soft t-shirt. "Lex'll get you some new stuff that actually fits."

The boy nodded his head as he fingered the material. The bearded man smiled at him.

"If somebody gives you a gift or does something nice for you, you can say 'thank you,' to tell them you like it," he said gently, much more kindly than any of the Terrors ever spoke to him.

"Thank you?" the boy said hesitantly and Floyd Deadshot nodded.

"That's it, kid," he said and reached out and ruffled the hair on top of his head.

That was… odd. A strange thing to do. What purpose did it serve? It felt nice, though, the boy realized, and his chest was a little warm again as he picked up the small stack of clothes.

Lexluthor had been talking on his phone low and quiet, although without the red lights draining the boy like back in his cell, Experiment 13 could hear him. That word 'lawyers,' again, and 'legal rights' and 'lawsuit' and 'child abuse' - so many words.

But he was hanging up now and coming over to him.

"I'll show you your bedroom and you can get changed," Lexluthor said to him, leading him towards a door - a wooden door - that opened and closed without a remote control.

Maybe… maybe they wouldn't lock him inside? The boy felt a flicker of hope.

He gasped when Lex opened the door. The room was enormous and had windows, too, and a giant bed with a soft fluffy looking mattress, and a desk and chair and bookshelf, although it was mostly empty, and a dresser, he had learned that word, and a soft rug over the wooden floor, and Experiment 13 thought it was the most marvelous place he had ever seen.

"You have your own bathroom," Lexluthor was saying, "right through here," he said, moving to another door in the room and opening it to show Experiment 13.

"Thank you," the boy said softly, still clutching his new clothes to his chest.

Lexluthor looked at him like he was sad and happy all at once again, and came over and took the clothes from him and sat them on top of the dresser.

"You're very welcome," he said, and then he did something most unusual.

Lexluthor put his arms out and gently wrapped them around the boy, before squeezing him to his chest, for a long, long time. The boy wasn't sure what to do at first, but tears were leaking out of his eyes and he slowly felt his arms stretching out and around Lexluthor's back and squeezing him back and the strange empty feeling that had always lived in the boy's chest felt like it was slowly beginning to evaporate.

"I love you," Lexluthor said to him. "I never imagined I'd ever have a child, but now that you're here…" he trailed off and squeezed him even tighter. "I won't let anyone hurt you ever again," Lexluthor promised him when he finally released him, before pressing his lips into the boy's hair.

"Thank you," the boy whispered.

"Why don't you get changed and then we'll see about some food," Lexluthor said.

"Ok," the boy said.

Lexluthor turned to leave and began to pull the door shut behind him, but he froze when he heard the boy's panicked gasp.

"Son! Son," Lexluthor said, letting go of the handle and rushing over to him. "I wasn't going to lock it," the man said, reaching out to gently grasp his upper arm.

"I was only closing it so you could change. Nobody is ever going to lock you in again, anywhere," he said and the boy sniffed and wiped his eyes and the man looked sad again when he left him alone to change.

* * *

When the boy came out, Lexluthor and the others were arguing over what food to order for dinner.

"I want pizza," Doctor Polaris was insisting.

"Thai," Starsapphire countered, hands on her hips.

"Chinese," Shade said back.

"Hoagies," Floyd Deadshot said.

"You can all order from different places you know," Lexluthor was grumbling, but that made everyone madder, it seemed.

How confusing, the boy thought.

"We can't," Starsapphire grumbled, "because we're all starving and whoever's gets here first, everybody else is gonna steal it."

Lexluthor muttered something under his breath which the others didn't seem to hear, but of course the boy did. "Fucking pack of children…"

Lexluthor turned and caught the boy looking at him and gave him a smile and a wink.

"What do you like to eat, son?" he asked.

The boy blinked.

"Nothing," he said honestly.

"Didn't they feed you in there?" Shade said in horror.

"Yes, but I did not like it," the boy said. "Protein shakes and energy bars."

"Ew," Doctor Polaris said with feeling. "You deserve to know what some good pizza tastes like."

"Cut that out," Floyd Deadshot said, very annoyed, the boy thought. "Rock, paper, scissors and that's final."

Lexluthor chuckled and led the boy over to sit by the windows while the strange people began some elaborate hand ritual.

"I don't suppose you have a name, son?" Lexluthor asked him.

"Experiment 13," the boy said and Lexluthor growled.

"You need a real name," he said. "Let's pick one," he said, opening up his laptop.

"How?" the boy asked as the man typed for a few minutes.

"Here," he said, turning the screen so the boy could see it, too. "These are popular baby names that people use for their children. You can pick whatever one you like."

"There are so many," the boy said, awed.

He began to scroll through the list, moving to the L's first.

"Lexluthor is not on there," he said with a frown.

"Oh," the man smiled. "Lex is my first name and Luthor is my last name. Your last name, too, now," he said. "But Lex is short for Alexander, under A."

"Oh," the boy said.

He began reading through the A's, but his head turned a minute later, distracted by the view outside the window.

"What are those white birds by the water?" he asked Lex.

"Seagulls," Lex said.

"Seagulls," the boy repeated to himself quietly. "Do you know what the bird was I saw outside the base? When Starsapphire took us outside? It had black and white stripes."

"That was a condor," Lex smiled.

"Condor," the boy said, still staring out the window.

"Let me see something," Lex said, taking the computer back and scrolling through the list.

"Conner is a name," he said, looking over at the boy. "That's kind of close to condor. And it's a bit similar in some ways to Alexander, too," he said. "What do you think?"

"Conner?" the boy said, and a smile stretched out across his lips as he spoke, feeling strange but good. "Conner," he repeated with more confidence.

"Conner Luthor," Lex said.

"I like it, Lex," Conner smiled at him and Lex smiled back, big and broad.

"I'm your father," he said. "You can call me Dad."

"Dad," Conner said, and then his dad was leaning forward and squeezing him again and Conner thought the warm feeling in his chest might be happiness.

* * *

His dad had told him that a team member would sit up awake in his bedroom all night to guard him, in case Amanda Waller tried to steal him back. When his dad had apologized for the intrusion, Conner had shrugged.

"I'm used to being watched all the time," he said, and his dad's eyes had gotten all sad again like they kept doing.

It was easy to fall asleep, feeling safe and cozy on the comfortable mattress, in the beautiful room full of windows, and Conner was sleeping soundly when he was awakened by the sound of crashing glass and shouting and Shade pulling him out of bed.

"Stick with me, kid," he said. "Don't want to be too close to the windows."

Shade tapped his staff and the bedroom windows filled with dark shadows, but Conner was peering around Shade into the living room where a muscular man in a blue jumpsuit and red cape was yelling at Conner's dad, who had been sleeping on the couch, apparently, anticipating trouble.

"Waller said you stole a top-secret government weapon!" the big angry man was yelling. "She gave us security footage of you breaking into the base. Where is it, Lex? It's not like you to do something so obvious and then come back home and kick your heels up."

"He's not a weapon," Lex said calmly. "He's a child. My son. Waller didn't give you all the facts."

"You have a son," the blue man said flatly, disbelief written all over his face. "And Waller kidnapped him and lied about him being a weapon, is that it?" the man sneered.

"Not at all," Conner's dad said. " _We_ have a son, as it happens. She cloned our DNA and grew a teenager who she's been abusing down in Area 57. My lawyers have already filed all kinds of lawsuits against Cadmus," Lex said, polishing his fingernails on his dress shirt that he had apparently slept in, along with his dress slacks and shoes.

"You have no business here, Superman," Lex said. "Let the courts handle this one or you'll be embarrassed."

"Superman?" Conner exclaimed, accidentally pushing past Shade in his excitement. "You're my other dad?" Conner asked, his eyes lighting up happily.

The big blue man turned and stared at Conner and… his eyes went hard and cold. Like the Terrors' eyes always looked. Conner didn't mean to but he whimpered and stepped back but Lex was already stepping in front of him, with Star Sapphire to his right and Floyd to his left.

"A clone?" Superman growled. "Of you and me?"

"Yes," Lex said calmly.

"She had no right," Superman spat, looking furious and like his heat vision was about to activate.

"Obviously she had no right," Lex said a trifle impatiently, "which is why I'm taking her to court and taking custody of Conner."

"You gave it a _name_?" Superman said angrily, crossing his arms on his chest. "It's a clone, Lex. You said so yourself. Waller called it Experiment 13."

" _He_ is a child, and he is mine," Lex said coolly, taking a step backwards towards Conner.

Superman's eyes flicked towards Conner, who had started shaking despite Shade's steadying hand on his shoulder.

"Waller said it was an experimental weapon," Superman said in a tight voice.

"She was abusing him with kryptonite to force him to train," Lex said. "That doesn't mean he's a weapon. He's a child."

"It means it's dangerous," Superman growled in a low voice. "I need to take it to the Watchtower."

"Like hell you will," Deadshot said, lifting up his magnums.

"What could possibly be the purpose of taking the boy to the Watchtower?" Lex said in a silky smooth voice. "LexCorp doctors have already looked him over for injuries or implants. I'd be glad to provide you with their reports."

"The clone has been programmed to kill and destroy and obey Amanda Waller's orders," Superman snapped. "The Justice League will also pursue action against her for what she's done, but that doesn't change the fact that a weapon with the powers of mass destruction has been created. We can keep it safe on the Watchtower, away from Earth."

"Keep Earth safe from him, you mean?" Lex said.

"Yes," Superman acknowledged.

"To be clear, you want custody so you can parent Conner yourself on the Watchtower? Instead of allowing me to parent him here in Metropolis?" Lex asked.

"What?" Superman frowned. "No - I don't live on the Watchtower - this isn't a _parenting_ situation, Lex," he said. "It's a cloned weapon that needs to be safely contained where it can't hurt anyone."

"Imprisoned, you mean," Lex said.

"It would have a large room it could - "

"Imprisoned," Lex repeated. "On the Watchtower. Like a criminal, with no parenting whatsoever."

"Yes," Superman said loudly, his anger rising. "It's not a child, Lex. It's a thing. An abomination," he growled, "ripped out of my own body and blended with yours and -" he broke off in disgust.

"No," Lex said calmly. "You can't have him. Conner is my son and he will remain here with me. If you wish to apply for joint custody through the courts, you're welcome to do so. In the meantime, stay out of my home which you broke into tonight."

"I don't think so," Superman said, starting to stalk forward. "The clone is coming with me."

A cry of terror erupted from Conner's throat but even before Shade could cast his darkness, Deadshot had fired right into Superman's chest.

"Get us out," Lex ordered and they were all in the purple bubble again and floating towards the open elevator that Doctor Polaris was waiting beside and as they flew, Conner looked over in shock towards Superman, because the Kyrptonian had fallen.

And… there was a glowing bullet lodged in his chest.

"Kryptonite," Conner whispered as the elevator flew down to Lex's safehouse buried low beneath LexCorp.

"I've learned to never be without it," Lex said sagely.

"Why didn't it affect me?" Conner asked him, staring at Floyd and his dad with big eyes.

"Lead lined guns with a cap on the end," Floyd grinned back at him. "Big Blue couldn't see the bullets and the green shit couldn't leak out and hurt you until I fired."

"Thank you," Conner said, starting to understand how his dad could be both happy and sad at the same time, because tears were filling Conner's eyes but his mouth was smiling and it was a strange and wonderful feeling like nothing he had ever felt before.

* * *

Lex, Conner, and his team of lawyers were already sitting in the otherwise empty courtroom when Superman stalked in, glowering with anger, with the Justice League Founders on his heels.

"Ah, Superman," King Faraday said, reaching out to shake the Man of Steel's hand as he stood from his seat in the first row behind the defendant's table. "And Founders," the Earth ambassador assigned to the Justice League greeted them.

"Some of you have met Ms. Goodwill and Mr. Harris already, of course," he said, indicating the lawyers behind him.

"Yes," Wonder Woman said after a pause that no one seemed inclined to fill as the team filed into the row of observational seats while Superman strode up to sit at the defendant's table with his lawyers.

She glanced over towards Lex and the clone - but Hera, he _was_ a boy, wasn't he? And he was frightened, Diana observed, noting the panicked glances the child was giving Superman and the way that Lex's arm went around the little one's shoulders and the soothing way that Lex whispered in his ear.

Batman was watching Lex and the boy, too, with a small frown on his face. He wasn't very old - maybe a little older than Jason had been when he'd first adopted him, Bruce thought to himself. Neatly dressed, of course Lex had made sure of that, putting him in an obviously tailored suit, but one that was age-appropriate, not making him seem older than his years - a wise strategy, no doubt, on Lex's part, but as Batman watched Lex comfort his obviously distressed child, the Bat felt his heart sink with the knowledge that all was not as Kal had made it appear when he had frantically slammed on his emergency distress beacon for help after being shot with kryptonite.

They'd almost lost him; it had been touch and go for days, given that Deadshot had fired the bullet straight into Kal's heart. If Batman hadn't whizzed over from Gotham in minutes in the Batwing and removed the bullet right in Lex's living room before whisking Superman away to the Batcave, where Alfred had patched the wound as best as he could before calling in Dr. Thompkins, who had performed open heart surgery under Batman's brilliantly bright yellow solar light lamps that he kept stocked just for Kal's rare encounters with kryptonite… well, Superman would have been no more.

Of course Batman had been furious at the attempt on his best friend's life, even when Kal began ranting about the clone that Amanda Waller had made from his DNA. But the way Kal had talked, Batman had gotten the impression that the being was some kind of psychopathic, barely living organic weapon.

Not a child, even younger than Jason had been when Jason had -

"All rise," the bailiff said as the judge entered the courtroom, and the proceedings began.

* * *

Batman's jaw was getting tighter as the trial went on.

Yes, Amanda Waller had called the Justice League for help on behalf of Cadmus, Superman testified from the witness stand. Yes, she had gone through Faraday and the proper channels to request assistance. Yes, she had specifically said that an experimental weapon with enormous destructive capabilities had been stolen by Lex et al. Yes, she had provided some video footage of the initial break-in at the base, but the cameras had gone out shortly thereafter, thanks to Polaris, no doubt.

No, she had not specified that the weapon was humanoid, or a clone, or a person, or a child, or whatever Superman very much didn't want to identify him as.

"But once you realized that the weapon Ms. Waller had described to you was a living being, a child, did you not pause to think that perhaps her request for the return of her so-called weapon was problematic?" the prosecutor asked Kal.

"Of course I did," Superman said with evident irritation. "Lex informed me that Waller had stolen my DNA. Naturally I wasn't going to return a weapon to the person who had violated and robbed me and used my own body material for experiments."

The judge's lips pressed tightly together, but Kal didn't notice.

"So what course of action did you propose to Mr. Luthor at that time?" Lex's lawyer asked.

"I told him that I would take the weapon to the Watchtower where it could be properly secured," Kal said with a derisive glare. "The penthouse of LexCorp Tower is hardly the place to keep a weapon of mass destruction."

"Is it the proper place to keep a child?" the prosecutor asked.

"The weapon is not a child," Kal said dismissively. "It's a clone."

"Conner Luthor is a living being, height and weight and physical development equivalent to a human child of approximately fourteen years of age," the prosecutor said, referencing the medical records that Lex's team had provided. "Conner Luthor's DNA is 50% that of the human Alexander Luthor, and 50% that of the Kryptonian alien known as Kal-El, or Superman. Are you aware, Superman, that every human child in the world contains 50% of the DNA of each parent?" the prosecutor pushed.

Superman sulked and sat silently.

"Answer the question, please, Superman," the judge said.

"Yes, I am aware," Superman spit out. "But that does not make the clone a child. There was no egg. No sperm. No willing donors."

"Are children of rape that mothers choose to carry to term not considered human beings?" the prosecutor asked. "Does the lack of a willing DNA donor nullify the rights of the subsequent living child?"

"It is not a child!" Superman roared.

Lex's prosecutor glanced back at him with a small smirk as the defense lawyers sighed quietly to each other. They had tried to prep Superman for his trial. They really had. But the Man of Steel was as stubborn and unyielding as steel, refusing to heed their advice and insisting that he was in the right, Lex was a villain, and that Kal-El of Krypton would be vindicated in court.

"The prosecution submits the home security recordings from Alexander Luthor's penthouse on the night in question," his lawyer said.

There was a pause as the video footage was loaded up into the monitor, and then the Justice League was forced to sit in uncomfortable silence while they listened to their founding member threaten a small, obviously terrified boy with imprisonment on the Justice League's base before calling the child an abomination to his face.

"I've heard enough," Batman snapped, standing as soon as the video finished.

"Batman, this is a trial with set procedures," the judge chastised him.

"Fine," Batman snarled. "Then I want to make an official statement to the court."

He continued without giving the judge a chance to cut him off.

"The Watchtower will _never_ be used as a prison cell for children, no matter how that child was created," Batman growled.

The judge raised her eyebrow.

"Do you speak for the entire Justice League, Batman?" she asked.

"I speak for myself," Batman said, "because I built the Watchtower and I own the Watchtower. I will evict the Justice League and destroy the base before I allow a child to be imprisoned there," he snarled.

"Give the boy to Lex," the Bat snapped. "He loves him."

Batman caught the surprised respect and gratitude in Lex's eyes just before he whirled to leave and stomped out of the courtroom, his black cape fluttering behind him. Superman watched him go with stunned, hurt eyes, but the rest of the Justice League was exchanging nervous glances with each other.

"This is a shitshow," the Green Lantern whispered to J'onn, who nodded his head even as Superman shot them a dark glance from the stand.

"I've heard enough to reach a verdict," the judge said. "You may step down, Superman, but remain standing at the defense table," she said.

Lex and Conner rose as well at the bailiff's instruction, Lex's arm still tight around his son and Conner looking shaky and nervous, while Superman glowered at the judge.

"In the custody hearing for Conner Luthor, I grant his father Alexander Luthor full custody," the judge said.

Lex burst out into a smile, and Conner tried to, but he started crying. As Lex pulled him into his chest in a tight hug, Wonder Woman found herself swallowing and thinking some very unkind thoughts about the teammate she'd only recently considered one of her closest friends.

"In the criminal charges against Alexander Luthor, Star Sapphire, Doctor Polaris, Floyd Lawton, and Shade, for the breaking and entering of a government facility and the theft of a government weapon, I find all of the accused not guilty," the judge continued, "due to the fact that the so-called weapon was in fact Mr. Luthor's biological child, created without his knowledge, who was being held illegally and subjected to extreme levels of physical and mental abuse."

"In the criminal charges against Kal-El of Krypton, also known as Superman," the judge said, "in the case of breaking and entering into Alexander Luthor's home, I find him not guilty, as he was following Justice League orders issued according to proper governmental procedures."

"In the charge of attempted felony kidnapping," the judge continued, and Diana felt her stomach knot, "I find Kal-El of Krypton, also known as Superman, guilty as charged."

"What?" Superman roared.

Diana stood up and pressed a hand down firmly onto his shoulder.

"Kal, please," she said. "Be calm. Now is not the time for emotional outbursts."

Lex was looking over at Superman now with a look so cold that Mr. Freeze could have borrowed it for his next ice ray.

"In light of your former service to Metropolis and to the world, Superman, the DA's office is prepared to offer you a plea bargain in exchange for a reduced sentence," the judge said.

"If you fully sign away all current and future parental rights to Conner Luthor, disowning him as your child, you will be sentenced to five years of parole during which you will report three times a week to a parole officer," the judge said.

"You and the Justice League will keep strict documentation of all of your superhero activities, whether in Metropolis or on behalf of the greater League, no matter how large or small the feat, which will be reviewed on a weekly basis with your parole officer to ensure that excessive force or prejudice is not being used."

J'onn began to grumble under his breath.

"As conditions of your plea-bargain," the judge went on, "you will be imposed with lifetime restraining orders prohibiting you from being within one mile of either Alexander Luthor, Conner Luthor, LexCorp Tower, and Conner Luthor's future schools and places of employment."

Superman drew in a sharp breath on a hiss, but the judge was far from finished.

"Additionally," she went on, "you may only continue to serve Metropolis in your capacity as Superman under the direct supervision of at least one Justice League member, who must work in tandem with you at all times."

"That is not -" Superman started to say, but Diana squeezed his shoulder harder.

"Shut up," GL whispered.

"Furthermore," the judge said, "due to the long-range capabilities of your heat vision, you will be required to wear heat restrictive eye goggles at all times within Metropolis city limits and at any time that you find yourself operating in a city that either Mr. Luthor or Conner Luthor is visiting."

Superman's chest started to heave with rage.

"Due to your super-speed capabilities, as well as your super-strength with which you may easily overwhelm a fellow League member should you decide to go rogue, Mr. Luthor and his bodyguards are granted permits to carry and conceal kryptonite weapons to be used in the defense of either Mr. Luthor or Conner Luthor's life or wellbeing."

Superman looked about ready to explode; in fact, Diana wondered if he was not considering taking off into the air and fleeing the scene, because she found herself lifting up her second hand to press down harder on both of his shoulders at once.

"These are extraordinary limits," Superman's lawyer tried to protest, but the judge shook her head.

"Superman is an extraordinary being capable of killing or kidnapping in an instant. Mr. Luthor and his son have the right to live a life as free from fear as possible, and in as much safety as is reasonably attainable from a being such as Superman," the judge said.

"If the terms of the plea bargain are unacceptable to Superman, he will be sentenced to one hundred years in Iron Heights with no possibility of parole."

A stunned silence fell over the Justice League.

"Take the deal," J'onn said.

Superman stood silently.

"Kal," Diana said urgently. "Take the deal."

Superman gritted his teeth, but finally ground out, "I accept the plea-bargain."

* * *

Batman sighed when Superman buzzed him from the Batcave's locked entrance, but he opened the security gate with a click of a button from the Batcomputer and let him in.

An angry, fuming Kal flew over and landed in front of the Bat, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at him with deep hurt written all over his face.

"Well?" Batman said snarkily.

"Of all the people who I would have thought would have my back -" Kal started to say, but Bruce cut him off.

"You were wrong, Kal," the Bat snapped. "And if you can't see that, then maybe I don't know you as well as I thought I did," he growled.

"They stole my DNA, Bruce!" Clark cried in frustration. "And made a - THING!"

"They made a _child_ , Kal," Bruce said with irritation. "I know you don't like it," he said. "I know it hurts," he said with a touch more patience. "I know you feel violated and you have every right to. But you do not have the right to put a child in prison just because you don't like that they exist," Batman said.

"Oh, and you have the right to put a child in a cape and get him killed?" Kal snapped.

Bruce's mouth fell open and tears filled his wounded eyes.

"Bruce!" Kal said in horror. "Rao, I'm sorry! Bruce, I didn't mean it. I was angry, I -"

"Get out," Batman said flatly.

Tears began to roll down Superman's cheeks as he stared miserably at his best friend for one more long second before lifting up and flying out of the Batcave.

Only then did Bruce draw a shaking hand up to his face to wipe away his tears, before swiveling in his chair to look at his son's uniform, preserved forever in its glass case, never to be worn again.

"I'm sorry, Jason," Bruce whispered, laying a bare hand on the glass as sobs overtook him.

 _Never again,_ Bruce thought to himself. Never again would he take on a Robin. That way he'd never lose another child. Not ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! You guys leaving me comments are so awesome and thank you so much! You can tell this story keeps pouring out of me (much to the detriment of the rest of my life but oh well, it must be told) so your encouragement is totally keeping me going! 
> 
> Yeah, I might have a few FEELINGS about Clark and how he treats Kon... ;) I'm sure you couldn't tell that AT ALL. And I mean, yeah, of course I'm changing things around some but... the emotions in my soul are driving it. As one commenter aptly said, FUCKING CLARK. So say we all. Not that I don't love Clark in other stories or other ways, but.... it's Whumptober, right? This is my contribution lol. 
> 
> Fanfiction writers are thirsty vampires and comments are our lifeblood. 🧛🩸😁  
> (But if you are mean, we will cut a bitch. Cuz we are vampires rawr 🦇)
> 
> You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble. Come say hi!


	8. PunkGothBat Cometh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW - Slight suicidal thoughts. Please see all the resources in the author's notes for Ch. 2 if you are suicidal and need help. Stay with us, we love you and want you here.
> 
> TW - Aftermath of Dick's canonical rape by Tarantula is indirectly referenced (Bruce doesn't understand what's going on, though.)
> 
> This is the chapter that will make more sense if you read Fic#2 ("Love Is A One-Eyed Monster") in this series, to get Dick's perspective on the assault. (You can read it after this chapter, though. Either way.) 
> 
> Note for the timeline that we are back in the Present Day that Ch. 1 is set in.

_Present Day_

Batman's head recoiled in surprise as Black Bat lightly landed in front of him on the Gotham rooftop, her hands balled on her hips.

The bizarre stitching on her face mask always made her look hauntingly grisly, but last night's experience of watching death claim Steph was no doubt adding to Bruce's perception of Black Bat's imposing spectral effect.

"I told you to stay out of Gotham," Batman growled at her as he took a cautious step back.

"Steph!" the Black Bat snapped at him, lashing out with an accusatory finger pointed right at his eyes.

"Oh, shit," Batman mumbled in horror. "You knew her?"

"Where?" the phantom girl demanded, stomping forward even as Batman continued to walk backwards in order to maintain a healthy distance between them.

"She's at Jefferson's Funeral Home," Batman sighed.

The Black Bat froze in her approach and cocked her head at him, but Batman was continuing to speak.

"Visitation is tomorrow night from six to eight," he said wearily, "although it's going to be closed casket, of course, and the service is Wednesday morning at ten, also at the funeral home," he said.

Only then did he realize that the Black Bat's chest was heaving up and down in a panic.

"... dead?" she whispered, sounding absolutely horror-stricken.

"Oh, _fuck,_ " Batman said, clapping a gloved hand over his mouth in agonized shame. "You didn't know," he said.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, I'm so sorry," he said, suddenly all compassion towards the interloping vigilante who had been such a pain in his ass when she'd casually appeared in Gotham a year ago on her own personal mission to obliterate a child trafficking ring.

Which sure, yes, was an excellent and worthy cause, but her lethal methods were Not Acceptable in _his_ town and when Batman had said as much to the simply-clad assassin, along with lobbying hefty threats of what would happen to her if she continued to operate in Gotham (naturally he'd take over her case), the girl had shown up two nights later all over the news in a mockingly hand-stitched Bat costume, with a ghastly upside-down mouth and hollow eyes, and then continued traipsing around town merrily murdering whoever she saw fit to kill.

She'd beat the shit out of Batman when he'd tried to stop her. Not an incident the Bat cared to remember. He'd not only been humiliated, but alarmed by the girl's ability to predict his movements and, reluctantly, impressed, because meta or not, Bruce didn't know, but she was one hell of a fighter and wouldn't have been able to best him had she not been equally as skilled in combat as she was in reading his body language.

The papers had given her the name the Black Bat, but Bruce didn't know if perhaps the girl had leaked that to the press herself. He did know that he couldn't fucking stand her and he definitely hadn't known that Steph had made her acquaintance.

He also knew that he was nowhere near at his best tonight, which was why Batman had been taking cautious steps away from the imposter Bat until putting his foot in his mouth in the worst way possible, because the little Black Bat was crying, now.

Screaming, actually, with huge piercing wails of pain and misery as she crouched down on the ground in agony and Bruce felt like absolute shit.

"I'm sorry," he said again, very awkwardly, as he bent down next to her and patted a tentative hand on her shaking back.

"How?" the girl managed to whimper out to him on a long, heartbroken howl.

"Black Mask," Bruce sighed. "Red Hood found her being tortured but it was too late to save her."

Black Bat's still-covered face tipped up at him, obviously demanding more explanation as she continued to cry, so Batman took a deep breath.

"She'd been Robin," Bruce said. "I don't know if you knew that?" he asked, feeling his stomach sink when the girl nodded her head yes.

Shit, she and Steph really _had_ been close, hadn't they? Black Bat had been long gone from Gotham before Spoiler had graduated to Robin. Oh, God.

"I fired Steph as Robin," Bruce said softly, apologetically. "She disobeyed an order and almost got killed and I was scared -"

He took a gulping breath before continuing.

"She launched a gang war that got out of hand. I think she wanted to prove herself and earn Robin back. But she went out as Spoiler and Black Mask caught her and… I didn't know," Batman forced himself to say.

"I was trying to deal with the gangs and I had told her not to go out anymore as Spoiler, either, and…"

He barely had time to block the knife that was flung out backwards from the Black Bat's right arm straight at his chest.

And then he was knocked flat on his back and the knife was coming at his head and Batman was barely able to flip Black Bat off in time to avoid needing an eyepatch, but even though he managed to regain his feet the girl was coming at him with a whirling flurry of feet and hands and knives and he was getting hit and cut because Black Bat wasn't going to stop this time with teaching him a mere lesson; she was aiming to kill, and Bruce suddenly realized with his heart in his throat as he frantically defended blows that it all might end right here, right now, at the hand of a rightfully angry, grieving girl determined to avenge her friend, and the worst part was that for half a second, Bruce thought that death would be a great relief.

_How would Dick feel?_

The thought whispered through his brain unbidden, but Bruce's arm reacted by blocking his head from Black Bat's kick and his feet twirled him a step farther away.

Dick and Bruce hadn't spoken in months and Bruce still didn't quite understand why. He didn't want to over-impose on his oldest son if Dick wanted nothing to do with him at the moment, so Bruce had been restraining himself to leaving a voicemail only once a month, but from Bruce's perspective, things had been perfectly fine between him and his son and then a year ago, Dick had all but disappeared with no explanation.

Up until his mysterious departure, Dick had been doing so well as Nightwing, living in Bludhaven and carving out his independence apart from Batman and Gotham, working on the Bludhaven Police Force on what Bruce had privately thought was a fool's mission, but outwardly supported, in a vendetta to root out police corruption from the inside of the force.

Dick and Bruce were talking back then a few times a week and Dick made it over for dinner at the manor at least twice a month, and Alfred and Bruce trekked out to Bludhaven once a month without fail to visit Dick, and sure, Dick had been disappointed to not get his soulmate right when he turned twenty-one - maybe even a little sadder than Bruce had expected - but it was normal to feel down if it didn't happen on your birthday, especially given that Dick had been growing up on the sidelines watching Bruce go on nineteen years without a soulmark; but still, Dick had seemed mostly ok overall, Bruce had thought, during his twenty-first year.

Good, even, most of the time.

Of course, parts of the year had been hard; Jason had miraculously come back to them, which on one hand was so overwhelmingly wonderful that Dick and Bruce and Alfred could hardly contain their joy - but Jason had been so different, too. Angry and violent and brutally murderous, and so very upset to learn that he'd been replaced by young Tim Drake as Robin.

To be fair, Bruce hadn't intended to take on any more Robins after Jason had died, but then the baby paparazzo had tried to blackmail him with his knowledge of Batman's identity and dammit, the boy had reminded Bruce of Dick and Jason, both, in his eagerness to be Robin. That bright, shiny look in his eyes of hope laced with determination cranked to life parts of Bruce's heart that he thought had died with his son.

So, against Bruce's better judgment, and maybe also because more than a year after Jason's death he was still looking over his shoulder for a yellow cape that wasn't there, Bruce had relented and allowed Timothy Drake to train as Robin and finally to don the colors.

Bruce hadn't expected Jason to come back from the dead, after all. And he didn't blame his son for being hurt and angry; Bruce couldn't even begin to imagine what it did to a person's psyche to die and then come back to life only to be assimilated into the League of Assassins for two full years without the benefit of his memories or full intelligence.

Bruce didn't blame Jason, but that didn't mean that his son wasn't difficult to deal with more often than not these days.

So, yes. Dick's twenty-first year had been a little strange and trying, but that didn't explain why his son had up and disappeared without a word to Alfred and Bruce not long after his twenty-second birthday.

The small incident with Tarantula had seemed to be the tipping point, that was true; Dick's first protégée had turned out to be irredeemable, killing the criminal Blockbuster and proudly boasting about it to all of Bludhaven.

Dick had quite understandably taken a short get-away afterwards, embarrassed and angry and disappointed and blaming himself, no doubt, as her mentor. Bruce had wanted to call and reassure his son that he wasn't to blame - that sometimes no matter how much you invested in a person, they chose a darker path, and that was no reflection on Nightwing as a hero or on Dick as a person.

But since Dick had let Alfred, not Bruce, know about his mini-vacation, Bruce had decided to wait to talk to Dick until he got back to town. Give his boy a few days to come to grips with his feelings and his mentee's failure before having to have what Dick was surely fearing would be an awkward conversation with his father.

But Dick had not called home after the first week away. And then, two weeks had passed with no word and no response to Bruce and Alfred's phone calls and texts.

Worried, Batman had gone to Dick's apartment and found it cleaned out, the furniture left but all personal effects gone. A snoop through the leasing office revealed that the lease had been terminated. An anonymous phone call to BHPD, and Bruce learned that Officer Grayson had resigned.

Truly anxious, now, Bruce had activated Dick's trackers and left another string of voicemails and texts on his son's phone. Batman had been on his way to Costa Rica in the Batwing, following Dick's implanted homing signals, when Dick had finally called him.

"Son!" Bruce had gasped out. "Alfred and I have been so worried. Your apartment was empty and you quit the force and - are you all right?"

"Kind of," Dick had mumbled. "I mean, yes. I'm fine. Not kidnapped or hurt, or anything," he said glumly, not using any of the code phrases that he would have used had he been held prisoner.

"I was so sorry to hear about Tarantula killing Blockbuster," Bruce said kindly. "I don't blame you for that, son," he said. "It wasn't your fault at all, and nobody in Bludhaven is blaming Nightwing for it, either," he said. "Sometimes the people we mentor end up letting us down. We all understand that."

"Yeah," Dick said hollowly, his voice little more than a whisper.

"Sweetheart, what's going on?" Bruce said, now really concerned. "I can help. Just tell me what you need. What happened?" he asked.

To his horror, he heard the muffled sounds of crying being covered up.

"Dick?" Bruce said.

"It's ok," Dick said a second later, in a voice that sounded just the opposite. "I'm ok, Bruce. I just… I need some time away from it all. You know?" he said. "I need to step back for a little while."

"Ok," Bruce said, furrowing his brow and wishing that Dick would be more forthcoming about what had actually gone wrong, because surely the incident with Tarantula wasn't enough to cause Dick to throw his career and his life in Bludhaven away as carelessly as if they'd never meant anything to him, when Bruce knew how much Dick had invested in both.

"I don't like you being by yourself right now," Bruce said. "I can tell you're hurting."

"I'm not alone," Dick said, and… was that a glimmer of a smile that Bruce heard in his son's voice?

"I'm with a friend," Dick said. "We're gonna travel together for a while, see the world, that kind of thing," he said.

"Ok," Bruce said again.

He paused.

"It's not Roy, is it?" he said with some trepidation, and then Dick was actually laughing, and someone in the background was laughing, too.

"No, it's not Roy," Dick chuckled. "Someone a lot more responsible."

"Good," Bruce said with satisfaction. "Well…" he said, sensing that Dick had revealed about as much in this conversation as he planned to. "Check in with me once in a while, all right?" he said. "Let me know you're safe?"

"I will," Dick had promised.

And, he did, with a text once a week like clockwork that said "I'm all right," with a cheesy grinning emoji and a thumbs up, and sometimes a photo of him in his latest tourist trap, but Dick rarely returned Bruce's monthly phone calls.

However, that didn't mean that his son wouldn't miss him if Bruce died tonight on the rooftops they'd once patrolled together. The one thing Bruce knew for sure was that Dick was struggling somehow, and as appealing as death sounded to the Bat in this moment, and as just a sentence as it would be for his crime of letting another Robin die, Bruce determined that he had to stay alive for Dick's sake.

Decision made, he blocked the next blow from Black Bat before committing the most disgracefully unBatmanlike atrocity ever - he turned tail and ran as fast as he could, flinging himself off the rooftop headfirst and plummeting towards the ground in the dark for long seconds before firing his grapple and swinging away to safety.

* * *

"Holy fuck!" Jason yelped in surprise when a blow from out of nowhere hit his back as he diligently worked on unscrewing the coffin lid in the dark of the closed funeral parlor.

He whirled around, thankful for his helmet's night vision which allowed him to catch Black Bat's next attack in a block before advancing on her with counter-blows, matching her hit for hit as they danced around the room.

"What'd I do to you, BB?" Red Hood yelled at her, feeling kind of pissed as she leapt at him with a flying kick that he caught and used to flip her facedown towards the ground, although she pushed off with her hands and did a Dick-worthy cartwheel forward.

Jason was only robbing a damn coffin. It wasn't like he'd stolen her kill, or something. That, he could understand being huffy about.

"Mine!" she screamed at him.

"Bitch, get your own body!" Jason yelled back at her. "There's more downstairs in the morgue. This one's mine!" he snapped, matching his words with a kick that connected to Black Bat's hip, although that didn't stop her from spinning around and landing a fist to his neck that snuck in just under his helmet's lip.

"Mine!" Black Bat repeated with even more venom as Jason staggered back, clutching his throat.

Fuck, that one had hurt.

"Steph!" the feisty little knockoff Bat yelled, pulling out a sword, and Red Hood quickly held his hands up, coughing.

"Cass…?" he rasped out, and she halted.

"Are you Cass?" Jason repeated, reaching up and lifting his helmet off as he cleared his throat and tried to find his voice again. "Steph said to tell you she loved you," he wheezed.

And then Black Bat was pulling back her freaky deaky cowl that Jason loved so much, and not only because Bruce hated it, but because it had a major punk-rock-meets-goth vibe going on that Jason really dug, and Jason found himself staring at a girl who was closer to his age than to blonde Robin's.

And she was crying.

"Cass…" she sniffed out brokenly, tapping her chest.

"Jason," he said, peeling off his domino and tossing it into his hood.

"C'mere," he said, reaching forward to pull her into a hug, and she very sweetly sheathed her sword before wrapping herself around his chest.

"Hey, I'm sorry," he soothed her as she sobbed. "Steph really cared about you," he said.

"Friend," Cass mumbled against him.

"Best friend?" Jason asked her and she nodded.

"Well, Blondie just went up in my already high estimation of her, being friends with a bad bitch like you," Jason teased, and Cass actually snorted a little bit in something close to a giggle.

"Why'd you start attacking me all crazy like that?" Jason asked her when her tears seemed to start letting up.

Cass stepped back and looked at him in the dark shadows, taking a breath and visibly searching for a word before faltering and slapping her hands to her forehead in frustration.

"You have trouble talking?" Jason intuited, and she nodded.

"Just with English, or with all languages?" Jason asked her, because his Mandarin wasn't too bad and neither was his Tibetan, although his Cantonese was iffy, but she sighed.

"All," she mumbled.

"Oh," Jason said in disappointment. "Well… um…"

He scratched at the back of his head.

"I mean… we could play charades?" he offered and she snorted again, with more humor this time and no, Jason wasn't smiling.

Uh uh. Nope. Black Bat definitely wasn't kinda cute or anything.

Cass smiled back at him and went over to the full bodybag that had been peacefully resting at Jason's feet before she'd rudely interrupted his thievery, and she nudged it with her foot and then pointed at the coffin and put her hands on her hips with a question mark in her eyebrows.

"Oh, Steph's still in the coffin," Jason said. "I haven't got her out yet. I was about to before you attacked me," he said with a mock glare.

Cass shrugged her arms, palms up, clearly asking why.

"You ever heard of a Lazarus Pit?" Jason grinned at her, picking up his screwdriver again and getting back to work on the coffin lid.

Cass shook her head.

"It can heal people, or extend their life," Jason said. "I know, cause I went swimming in one before when I was a zombie," he said. "And it fixed me all up. Although there are some side effects," he mumbled, mostly to himself.

"But anyway," he went on more cheerfully, "they can raise the dead."

He looked up when Cass gripped his upper arm tight, staring up at him with big eyes.

"Yeah, for real," he said. "So the plan is, we're gonna swap this stiff out with Blondie," he said. "I already made sure he weighs the same. It's gonna be a closed casket funeral so ain't no worries there," he said, "’cause I don't know about you, but I'd rather not dig up a grave," he said with a shiver of familiarity that he chose not to explain.

Jason glanced over at Black Bat and she only looked curious so far and not like she hated his plan, so he kept talking.

"Once we've got my poor Dead Robin, here," he went on, moving to another screw, "we're gonna steal a plane, fly into the heart of the League of Assassins - oh, you know them," he said when Cass's face got a scowl on it.

She nodded.

"Yeah," Jason agreed. "I know. Bitches, right?"

She was laughing at him a little, in response to that, and Jason didn't think it was good that his tummy did a little excited flip.

"So, once we're there," he said, trying to focus only on the mission, dammit, because _soulmates, Jason, no flirting allowed_ , "we gotta sneak Robin here into the Lazarus Pit that they guard with their lives because Ra's likes to swim in it all the fucking time."

Cass's eyebrows went up but Jason went on.

"We gotta sneak Blondie in and dunk her without getting ourselves killed," he said, "although if only one of us dies that might be ok," he said thoughtfully, "because now that there's two of us, the other one could just resurrect the one who eats it, assuming you could get both dead bodies to the Pit," he mused -

\- Cass was giving him a look, but it was an amused one and Jason shouldn't be grinning back, but he totally was -

\- "Anyway, we gotta dunk Steph, keep her from killing us when she goes all nuts coming back to life," Cass was choking out some surprise-tinged-concern, now, but Jason rolled on, "get back to the plane, oh - first we gotta fly in without the League seeing us, but I got a plan for that part," he reassured her, "then we gotta get back to the plane with our slightly crazed and manic reanimated Robin without getting caught, and fly back to Gotham," he said, nodding his head at the soundness of his plan.

Cass's eyes had gotten a little big at the last part. Hm.

They were awfully pretty eyes, though - _dammit, Jason, no they weren't!_ Well, it was only because they were so intelligent and expressive, Jason sulked to himself. Probably her eyes were like that because she didn't talk much. So sue him, it made them pretty. Could he not observe a simple fact without his conscience yelling at him?

"Oh, and when we get back, I'm gonna unleash Blondie on Bruce," Jason giggled. "And videotape it so I can watch it when I'm sad. Oh, my God, he's gonna get what's coming to him, then, I tell you what," he grinned and suddenly Cass was beaming at him.

"Kill," she said proudly.

His jaw dropped.

"You killed Batman?" he whispered.

Cass shook her head.

"Fight," she said, mimicking the motions. "Kill," she repeated, drawing her eyebrows together and miming vicious attacks, before saying "Leave," and whirling in a very Dark Knight kind of way before running down the carpeted room somehow conveying utter terror and panic, and diving into a somersault.

"You tried to kill him and he ran?" Jason interpreted, and Cass ran back up to him and nodded, jumping up and down and clapping her hands for him and smiling wide.

Jason began laughing and within seconds, his stomach hurt from how hard it was shaking, and he had to sit down on the floor.

"Oh, my God," he gasped out, still laughing hysterically, "the fucker turned and ran and dived off the roof?" he asked her.

Cass grinned and nodded again.

"High five, BB," Jason said, reaching up for her hand with his and feeling stupidly happy as she slapped it back hard.

"That's amazing," Jason said, wiping his eyes and standing back up, surprised when Cass grabbed his hand and helped pull him to his feet.

"Thanks," he smiled at her as he picked up the screwdriver again.

He went to work on the fourth screw, still chuckling softly, before he got it out and added it to his pocket. Jason grabbed one end of the coffin lid.

"Get the other end?" he asked Cass, so she moved to help him to lift it off.

They set it on the floor but as soon as Cass straightened up, she was looking at blonde Robin and suddenly crying again, really mournful this time, and whispering "Steph," in between tiny choking sobs and smoothing her hand over Blondie's hair and ew, bending down to press kisses to Robin's stinky formaldehyde-filled forehead, which the morticians had gone ahead and covered with thick nasty makeup despite the closed casket services, and frankly Jason would have waited to do the head kisses until Robin was resurrected, but hey, he wasn't a girl.

They got weirdly emotional about crap.

"Um, you ready?" Jason said after about a minute of grosser-than-normal girl time when Cass had finally stopped kissing the stiff.

She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and nodded.

"Oh, lemme dump the other guy out first so we can put Blondie right in the body bag," Jason said, deciding that would be more respectful than setting Steph on the floor first, so he bent down to unzip the bag before unceremoniously turning it over and shaking the dead body out.

Cass recoiled when it hit the ground, because even in the dim shadows of the closed funeral parlor, she could see that both arms and parts of the legs were missing and that didn't bother her, exactly, but it was a little unexpected.

"I had to chop him down some so he weighed the same," Jason said breezily as he righted the bag and floofed it open to be ready for his Dead Robin.

He looked up, though, when Cass started giggling.

Oh, she was laughing at _him._ About the body. Jason giggled back at her, a little bit.

He'd always suspected he'd like killer-punk-goth-girl-Bat. She had a vibe about her that said she gave no fucks. Especially when Bruce had tried to run her out of town and she'd mocked him with the creepy Bat costume.

Jason had bought the actual paper newspapers that day so he could cut out all the pictures of Black Bat and hang them on his fridge. One day, when he managed to get on better terms again with his dad (although the Dead Robin in front of him had pushed that date way, way back) Jason planned to invite Bruce over for a lovely home-cooked dinner just so he could enjoy the different shades of red and purple that his father's face would turn when he saw Jason's Black Bat shrine.

That was gonna be a good day. Jason had even gotten the plastic Black Bat toy that came with the JusticeMeals at BatBurger and hung it from a magnet.

But, hey! Maybe Jason would become actual friends with the Black Bat now that they were going on a foolhardy buddy mission together into the territory of the worst assassins on the planet, and then he could have Black Bat herself at Dinner With Dad, and that would be even more hilarious.

Especially if she wore her costume.

And, assuming they made it back at all, Dead Robin would be Alive Robin again, so Jason could invite her, too, and then Bruce would really blow a gasket.

Jason was going to make Bruce's favorite coq au vin from Alfred's recipe that Bruce would be able to smell from the hallway, and Jason was going to greet Bruce at the door with a big hug and tell him how much he loved him and how happy he was that his dad had come over for dinner, and then Jason was going to walk Bruce into the kitchen to see the rest of his dinner guests and his Black Bat FanFridge.

It was going to be fabulous. Absolutely splendid. But first they had to get Dead Robin packed up and back to his safe house.

"You want to take her head or her feet?" Jason asked Cass, and she moved to grip Steph's cold shoulders, which were clothed in a purple sweater that must have belonged to her, because it was the same color as the Spoiler outfit.

Before the costume had gotten all stained brown, that was. Jason felt his stomach knot and some bile come up his throat, remembering what she'd looked like tied up and screaming and bleeding and -

"Hood!"

He shot his head up, surprised to find his breaths coming short and hard. Cass snapped her fingers in the air and he shuddered and blinked and remembered what they were doing.

"Sorry," he mumbled, picking up Dead Robin's feet. "On three," he grunted, and then they were lifting up Steph and maneuvering her into the body bag and zipping it up and Jason could breathe easier again.

He reached down and swung the substitute body up carelessly to stuff it into the coffin.

"Who?" Cass asked him curiously.

In the dark, Cass saw the green flash that glittered in Jason's eye.

"One of Black Mask's guys," he grunted. "Figured he should go in the grave they caused to be dug," he said in a voice laced with bitterness. "It was an absolute pleasure chopping him down to size, let me tell ya," he said.

"I woulda put Sionis himself in here, but I burned him," Jason said. "No resurrections for him."

Cass's eyes sparked with hatred and before Jason could ask her to help him with the coffin lid, she was viciously stabbing the dead body with her swords.

"Damn, girl," Jason said appreciatively when she finished, wiping the gunk on the swords off on the interior padding of the coffin. "I like your style," Jason said, and Cass gave him a little sad half-smile.

"We'll get her back," Jason promised her.

"Hope," Cass said.

"Will," Jason replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Future chapters will be written from Cass's POV sometimes, so that she can communicate with the readers through her thoughts if not her words.
> 
> Thanks for reading and thanks especially to my beautiful commenters! I literally am cranking this fic out as fast as I can and saying fuck a schedule, because I just want to get it written and posted. I'm too obsessed with it and also got too many WIPs right now. Want this one FINISHED but there's a lot left. A new chapter of my longfic "A Light in the Dark" will be coming out soon, too, hopefully around Sunday or Monday. 
> 
> Fanfiction writers are thirsty vampires and comments are our lifeblood. 🧛🩸😁  
> (But if you are mean, we will cut a bitch. Cuz we are vampires rawr 🦇)
> 
> You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble. Come say hi!


	9. Cold Hands, Warm Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains references to dry ice, and FYI, you should not ever sit in a small, enclosed place with dry ice, because it leaks too much CO2. I had the characters ventilate the room but still, irl, don't ever sit in a tiny room 'cause I'm sure technically speaking there wasn't actually enough ventilation. Sh, this is fiction.

"If we sling Blondie over your back, you can ride behind me on my bike," Jason said to Cass as they snuck out of the still-dark funeral parlor with one very dead Robin in a bodybag, the trimmed-down henchman safely entombed in Steph's re-closed casket.

Cass nodded as a warmth filled her belly. Hood had included her so easily in his plans to bring back her Steph, not even bothering to question Black Bat's willingness to participate but automatically assuming she'd want to, and the friendly trust and camaraderie he offered meant more to Cass than she could express.

Steph had been the only one who had ever treated Cassandra Cain with such openness of heart. Batman's horrifying casual reveal of Steph's death hadn't just meant the loss of Cass's friend; it was the loss of her only friend.

She had frantically raced to the funeral parlor after the Big Bat's cowardly exit, needing to hold her Steph one last time, but hoping against hope that Batman was wrong, that Steph wasn't really gone, after all, because Cass hadn't quite known how she would cope with the rest of her life if Steph was lying there dead when she opened her casket.

To go back to the raw, aching emptiness that was all Cass had known growing up with her father, assassin David Cain, who had wanted his daughter to be a weapon more lethal and better trained than any other fighter in the world, such that he had withheld verbal language from her for years, forcing her to become an expert at reading body language, at meeting her own needs, at living in complete solitude - Cass didn't think she could survive that way again, not after Steph had befriended her and given Cass her first taste of true human connection.

Black Bat hadn't been trying to make friends the night she'd saved Spoiler from the crooks who had outnumbered the purple-clad girl. Black Bat didn't have friends. But Steph had determinedly changed that.

"Oh, my God! Thanks so much, you're the best!" the clearly overmatched girl had said, wide-eyed, when the shadowy ninja had dropped down from the roof and handily defeated every one of the thugs that Spoiler had already taken far too many hits from.

Ninja Cass had frowned at her before directing a scathing glance to the now knocked-out foes.

"I wasn't trying to fight them on purpose," Spoiler said, intuiting Cass's rightful judgment of her inability to handle the situation. "I was following my da- Cluemaster, and they came out and surprised me and I got trapped. I've never seen you before," she'd said. "Are you one of the bats?"

Cass's snort of disgust had earned a giggle from the rescued girl.

"Me, neither," she said. "I'm friends with Robin, but Batman doesn't like me very much," she added. "My name's Spoiler. Can we hang out? I'll buy you a BatBurger," the blonde girl had pleaded.

Cass had been startled. Slowly, she pointed to her lips and shook her head side to side before shrugging helplessly.

"Oh, you don't talk?" the girl said.

Cass nodded.

"But you're not vegetarian or anything, are you?" the girl persisted, which seemed unrelated to Cass, but the girl was continuing on. "Actually, I think BatBurger has a veggie burger now, so will you come?" she begged Cass.

"There aren't any other girl vigilantes in town and the Bats think they're in charge of everything, anyway, and I'd really like to be friends," she had said, and Cass had seen the wistfulness in the girl's body that said she was lonely, and the persistent shivers that said that even though she was acting brave, she was still kind of scared from what had almost just happened to her, and Cass found herself nodding her agreement, much to Spoiler's delight and Cass's trepidation.

And now her best and only friend was lying dead in a bodybag slung across Cass's back while Cass clung tight to Red Hood's waist as he sped them through the city on his motorcycle. She couldn't resist leaning into him a little closer than she needed to; she hadn't hugged anyone in months, having left Gotham a little while ago to track down the back end of the trafficking ring that had brought her to Spoiler's crime-laden city in the first place.

She and Steph had Facetimed every other night without fail while Cass was in Hong Kong (until Steph had missed their last appointment, but Cass didn't want to think about that, now) but Facetime wasn't the same as hugs, and Cass was realizing just how much she had missed human contact, so she snuggled even tighter into Hood's warm back.

She sensed his movement before it happened, but Cass was still surprised when he reached down and squeezed an affectionate hand over hers where they were locked around his waist. The gesture gave her an odder sensation than when Steph used to touch her. It felt all fluttery and low in her body - much lower - and it made her want to press her cheek into Hood's back.

So she did.

And to her delight, his hand lingered over hers, his thumb tracing gentle patterns on her fingers that lulled Cass into slumping against him with eyes shut, allowing herself to be soothed by the raucous growl of his bike's unmuffled engine that crowded all possible thoughts out of her mind until it was a peaceful blank of noise mingled with the feel of Hood and the smell of car exhaust from the still-crowded streets of Gotham.

"We're here," Hood said in the modulated tones of his helmet, rousing Cass back to sitting fully upright as he pulled them into a dark garage in a run-down building in the Narrows, going by the looks of the architecture and graffiti covered walls.

Cass reluctantly swung herself off of his bike once he had stopped, feeling Steph bump against the backs of her knees as she stood.

"I'll carry her upstairs," Hood said after pulling his helmet off and leaving it and his domino on his bike, from the sounds of it. "Not that you can't," he said, and Cass could hear his smile despite the pitch-black room, "but I know where I'm going in the dark and won't bang her into stuff," he said.

And his hand gave Cass's shoulder a little extra rub as he slid the strap off and took Steph's weight from her, and that made Cass smile into her other shoulder, even more so when Hood reached down and took her hand in his so he could lead her through the garage and up stairs and through doors and then more stairs, all without turning any lights on.

Warm, Cass thought to herself. And strong. Rough. Fighter's hand.

She liked it.

Hood finally snapped lights on, letting go of Cass's hand to do so, which left Cass feeling emptier than she wished it would.

"I've got dry ice ready in the bathroom," Hood said to her over his shoulder, leading the way through a cozy living room packed with shelves and shelves of books along with an over-stuffed couch jumbled full of pillows and blankets in front of a very modest sized tv.

"I know they pumped Blondie full of formaldehyde, but I didn't want to take a chance on her getting stinky," Hood said, wrinkling his nose.

Cass was thankful he had thought that far ahead.

Jason gently set Steph's bodybag down in the hallway before motioning Cass into the slightly cramped bathroom, where two styrofoam coolers with lids ajar were gently spewing spooky gas into the air, although the open window and running bathroom fan were dissipating most of the excess carbon dioxide.

"What?" Cass asked him, touching his elbow and motioning to the bathtub, which was several inches full of some kind of lumpy material hidden under a few towels.

"Packing peanuts," Hood said, hefting up the first container of dry ice and dumping it into the tub on top of his base layer. "Should hopefully keep the dry ice from cracking the tub," he said, adding the second cooler full. "But I guess we'll see," he grinned.

"Stick these in the hall and grab Steph?" he asked Cass, passing her the empty coolers.

She set them in the hallway before lifting up the bag with her friend, feeling strangely comforted that Steph was right here with her instead of inside a coffin, alone in the dark somewhere. Jason gently took the bodybag and laid it on top of the dry ice. Cass came up next to him and knelt down to begin to unzip the bag, but Jason halted her.

"It'll burn her skin to take her out and lay her straight on the ice," he said.

Cass shook her head, though.

"See," she said, only unzipping the portion of the bag over Steph's face and gently folding it down over her friend's chest.

"Oh," Jason said softly as Cass turned and sat leaning against the wall, laying her left hand on Steph's hair and gently stroking it back in soothing motions.

"You want to sit in here with her?" he checked and Cass nodded, touched by the kindness in Hood's eyes she saw when she glanced up at him.

"Well…" he said, thinking, "let me get an extra fan," he said. "Even with the window open, I'm worried it'll be too much CO2 for you," he said, and then he was off to look and Cass was alone with Steph and wishing so badly that her friend's eyes would open and she'd look up and laugh at Cass like she used to, so often, about so many things.

Sometimes about their equally miserable fathers, or their shitty childhoods, or what Batman had done _now_ that was super obnoxious and annoying, or about the utterly fabulous Halloween themed eyeshadow kit Steph had gotten that had both purple _and_ black in it - _so we can both use it!_ \- she'd said, proudly holding out Cass's very own, very first makeup brush - or about the day that BatBurger introduced both Spoiler and BlackBat toys into their Justice Meals and Steph and Cass had gone in, in costume, to buy meals and then posed with their toys and the little kids on the Gargoyle Gym outside - and Cass didn't even feel the tears slipping down her cheeks until Hood was back and ripping off some toilet paper and dabbing her face for her.

Cass gave him a watery smile that he returned warmly.

"Do you want to change so you can be more comfortable?" Hood asked her, and Cass noticed he had taken off the Red Hood armor and was in pajama pants and a t-shirt now. "I brought you boxers and a tee if you want," he said, holding them out and Cass nodded her thanks with a smile that only grew as Jason reached for her hand and pulled her up to her feet.

"I'll set the fan up when you're done," he said as he left her alone in the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

When Cass opened the door again, he was there with the pillows and blankets in his arms that she'd seen on the couch.

"I figured if you're gonna sit here with her, you should be cozy," Jason said with a shy smile that looked slightly embarrassed at the surprised appreciation pouring out of Cass's face.

Cass wanted to say thank you to Hood, she really did, but her words were giving her more trouble than usual tonight (because Steph was dead, her brain chimed like an annoying morning alarm) and 'th' sounds were hard to make and she hated mispronouncing the few words she could manage to say, so Cass decided as she took the pile of covers from Hood and set it next to the bathtub (and it had nothing to do with the motorcycle ride over, really) that a hug would be the most effective way to thank him for his thoughtfulness.

She had to stand on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around Hood's neck, and that meant that her arms went a little more tightly around his neck than they otherwise might have, because she had to keep her balance, of course, plus Hood seemed a little startled by the hug and that meant that Cass had to hold on a little tighter because he jumped a little bit when she turned around and embraced him instead of sitting down with the blankets, but Cass didn't think that Hood minded because his arms slipped around her waist, lighter than Steph used to hug her, though - Steph used to squeeze the breath out of Cass with each exuberant hug - but Hood's hug was swoopy, kind of, with his palms skimming Cass's back and hips, and the fluttery feeling she'd felt on the bike was back, with some added tingles, and Cass found herself burying her face in Hood's muscled chest as her arms hung off his neck.

"You're welcome," he said into her hair, and Cass felt his smile against her scalp, which made her smile against his chest, and she was still smiling when he let her go, but he was, too.

He kept smiling as he turned and set the fan up, facing it to blow out of the room to help vent the carbon dioxide, and he snapped the bathroom lights off, leaving just the nightlite on, which gave Steph's face a soft, yellow glow that made her look less dead, and Cass liked it.

She looked up when Hood knelt in front of her as she fiddled with a pillow on the floor, trying to get comfortable.

"Lean forward," he said, taking the cushion and getting it placed just right against the wall behind her, and then he was unfolding a blanket and spreading it out over Cass's drawn-up knees and getting her all tucked in, but to Cass's great delight, Hood grabbed another pillow and propped it behind him as he turned and sat with his back against the tub and his long legs stretched out in front of him, that he covered with another one of the blankets.

The warmth that flooded Cass wasn't just from the covers.

* * *

Jason hadn't been expecting Black Bat to get so cuddly on the ride home, but fuck it, he was going to enjoy it and his conscience could shut right up.

Maybe Cass _was_ his soulmate, huh? So then it wouldn't be a big deal to flirt with her, would it? That's what he told himself as his hand found hers and couldn't let go the whole way home.

Besides, who was gonna want a soulmate like Jason Todd, anyway? Murderous vigilantes weren't exactly prime catches the last time he checked, no matter how much ooey gooey made-for-each-other romantic slop you pasted on top.

Jason couldn't help but hear Dick's voice in his head, though, the whole time that he was thoroughly enjoying holding Cass's hand while leading her upstairs through his house.

"Waiting for your soulmate will be worth it, Jaybird. You'll see," his older brother had always counseled when Jason would come home from school crushing on this girl or that boy.

But Dick was such a romantic, Jason thought to himself. So in love with the fact of soulmates and so eager to meet his own one day and so determined to save himself and make his soulmate his first and last and only love, and yeah, that was great for Dick.

Dick's parents had been soulmates, of course, and had been wonderfully happy together until their lives had been cut short.

Jason's parents? Not so much. Oh, they were soulmates, sure, but the fact that leaving her abusive husband Willis would have meant leaving her soulmate was the primary reason why Catherine Todd had stayed, no matter how many times Willis had hit her, or hit Jason, or cheated on her, or spent all their money, or disappeared for days on end leaving them without food.

Jason couldn't help but think that if his mom hadn't been so desperate to cling to the Universe's idea of what was best for her, she might have packed them up years before Willis finally left them for good and saved Jason and her both a lot of bruises and hunger pains.

But Jason had adored Dick when they were kids, and Jason really did want to be good and do the right thing (once Bruce had adopted him, at least, and approval had become his prime currency) and Dick always said that meeting your soulmate was the most important thing in the world, so… yeah.

Jason was feeling a little guilty about how much he was starting to like Cass.

He shoved the guilt aside as soon as she hugged him for bringing her the blankets, though, because it was a really nice hug, and people didn't hug Jason Todd (except for Steph's mom, he thought sadly), and girls especially didn't hug him, and a girl he liked had never hugged him, so if he got a trifle handsy when he hugged her back, well, it wasn't like his hands strayed anywhere they shouldn't have.

Even if they had been rather flirtatious in their explorations of her back and hips and - she was smiling at him, again, but trying to pretend she wasn't, now that they were all tucked in on the bathroom floor hanging out next to the dead girl in the bathtub in what one could conceivably call the romantic dim of his BatSignal nightlite.

"I only met Steph for the first time last night, when I found her," Jason said to break the silence, "but I really liked her," he said, and that was clearly a good opening gambit because Cass was lifting her head up now and smiling at him full on while she continued to stroke Blondie's hair with one hand.

"She was so brave," Jason said honestly, "and tough. She didn't crack and tell Roman Bruce's identity even after everything he did to her. Did Bats tell you that?" he asked and Cass shook her head no, looking proud and awe-struck even though her eyes were sad, too, about it, and even though the hand in Steph's hair laid a little heavier on the caresses.

"Funny, too," Jason continued with a fond smile. "Blonde Robin was laughing and joking with me right up until the end," he said softly, getting a little choked up remembering it. "So fucking brave," he whispered, dropping his eyes down into his lap as they got a little wet.

He looked up when Cass's free hand reached forward and squeezed his tight.

"Happy Hood there," she said, blinking through her tears before letting his hand go and leaning back against the wall again.

"Me, too," Jason said. "No Robin should die alone," he muttered. "Hell," he laughed bitterly, "even I didn't die alone," he said with mocking cynicism.

At Cass's questioning look, he said, "Joker killed me, but only because my birth mom Sheila sold me out to him. But Jokes got the last laugh, because he killed her, too, and we died together," Jason said, his mouth going a little grim.

"I gotta tell ya, Cass, it's a hell of a way to go, to be trying to save the mom who offered you up to die in the first place while she tells you what a good kid you are," he said with a slightly crazed chuckle.

Cass met his eyes without shrinking away, though, and slowly nodded her understanding.

"Dad," she said, tapping her chest. "Kill."

"He taught you to be a killer?" Jason guessed and Cass nodded.

"Not want," she said, before shrugging sadly.

"You were little?" Jason asked her. "A kid?" and Cass nodded again.

"Shit," Jason said with empathy. "I'm sorry. I know what it's like to be forced into that," he said. "Well," he amended, "my brain was mush when I made my first kill, but by the time I got my senses back, I'd killed so many people…" he said, letting his voice trail off.

"Bat," Cass said, frowning. "No kill."

"Yeah," Jason said. "I wasn't here. I was with the League of Assassins," he said, and Cass's eyebrows went up. "That's how I know where they are, and how to get to the Lazarus Pit and everything," he said. "Bruce's ex, Talia, she dragged me there after I came back to life - don't ask me how that shit happened, though, cause I don't even know," he said.

"But, yeah, I'd already become a killer by the time I got back to Gotham and then I was raging out from the Pit so I figured, what's a little more, ya know? If it's the scum of the earth I'm taking out," Jason said. "Plus, I was so angry at Bruce and I figured it would hurt him, and then once I'd started there didn't seem to be much point in stopping," he said somewhat forlornly.

"Same," Cass said, not letting him linger in his melancholy alone.

"Yeah?" Jason asked her.

"Dad die," Cass said. "Cass kill," she said with some resignation. "Killer, kill…" she trailed off with a sigh, too.

"How old were you when he died?" Jason asked her and Cass's face scrunched up in a really adorable way as she searched for the number, before finally settling on flashing three sets of five at him plus two.

"Seventeen?" Jason said and she nodded. "Wow," Jason said softly. "I was only with the League two years. I can't even imagine," he said. "Especially starting from when you were little."

Cass chewed on her lip, looking sad.

"Dad kill all," Cass said. "Cass kill bad kids."

Jason frowned at that before remembering her work taking down the child trafficking ring and her lethal methods of dealing with the perps.

"You only kill to protect kids," he said, and she smiled at his understanding. "But your dad made you kill whoever he wanted? That's terrible," he said with feeling. "That's how it was for me in the League, except at least I didn't have my brain when I was doing it. Now I only kill scum," he said. "Like you, but with a slightly broader definition," he grinned, and Cass smiled back at him.

"Good," she said, nudging his leg a little bit with her foot, which Jason totally, completely, could not even pretend to himself didn't turn him on.

"Hood good," Cass declared.

"Cass is pretty damn good, too," Jason said back, which made her grin and flush a little bit.

"You can stretch your legs out over me if you want," Jason offered, noticing that Cass's legs were curled up against her chest so she could sit sideways to rub Steph's head and still leave room for him to sit against the tub.

Sure, that was all he was noticing. Totally.

But Cass was shifting her legs and laying her calves over his lap and Jason wanted to turn cartwheels, but he settled for repositioning the blankets, ostensibly to tuck her feet in, but really so he wouldn't have a layer of blanket between her legs and his, even though he still had his pajama pants creating a barrier ( _shut up!_ he told his brain. Bad Jason. Very Bad.)

Cass didn't seem to think he was very bad at all, though, and that suited Jason just fine.

* * *

They'd been asleep on the bathroom floor for Cass didn't know how long when she awoke shivering, despite the blankets. Sitting next to a bathtub full of dry ice was cold, but she still couldn't stand the thought of leaving Steph here in the bathroom all by herself.

So Cass did the very logical thing and slid her legs off Hood's warm lap so she could crawl forward and burrow under his arm. He raised a sleepy eyelid to look down at her, and there was that smile again that kept making her tummy sing.

"Cold," Cass explained.

"You can go sleep in my bed if you want," Hood offered. "I can sleep on the couch."

"No," Cass said, calmly wrapping her arm around his chest.

Hm, it felt like a delicious heating pad. She'd made a wise decision.

"Ok by me," Hood was chuckling, tugging the blankets in closer around them before wrapping his free arm around her tight.

Cass buried her face in the crook of his shoulder and smiled. She was cold, and Hood was hot, and Cass felt a new flutter somewhere she had never felt a flutter before.

Steph would laugh in delight, if Cass could have told her. One day soon, she would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, these touch-starved babies.... <3  
> If you've read Fic#2 in this series, you'll understand why writing parts of this chapter made me tear up for Dick :.(.... 
> 
> So much more to come! Thanks for reading and thanks so much for the continued comments. You guys are giving me the mental fortitude to churn this out. NaNoWriMo? OcToBoWriNow! XD 
> 
> Fanfiction writers are thirsty vampires and comments are our lifeblood. 🧛🩸😁  
> (But if you are mean, we will cut a bitch. Cuz we are vampires rawr 🦇)
> 
> You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble. Come say hi!


	10. Who Needs Dick?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW - mentions of Dick's canonical rape by Tarantula, the aftermath, and a scene with Tarantula. 
> 
> Disclaimer - this is a work of fiction for entertainment purposes only. Do not kill anyone for any reason. It is both illegal and wrong.

Dick was surprised to get a call from Bruce on Tuesday morning, barely two weeks after his last message.

His dad had been incredibly respectful about only calling him once a month, despite the fact that Dick hadn't even returned the last few messages. The longer he stayed with Slade instead of going back home to Gotham (because Bludhaven would never be home again, Dick thought sadly. It would always remind him of…) the more nervous Dick had grown about having a conversation with his father.

The times they had talked since Dick's flight, Bruce had always been so careful not to ask his son when he was planning to return or to pry into what happened that made him leave, and his father's tender thoughtfulness always made Dick weep when he got off the phone after one of their brief chats, but as more and more time went by, Dick knew that he owed Bruce an explanation.

The problem was, he still wasn't ready to tell him the truth.

So like an actual dick, Dick had started avoiding his father's calls, although he dutifully checked in once a week to let Bruce know he was alive and, well, alive. Not well, but Bruce didn't need to know that part.

Although, Dick wasn't as unwell as he'd once been, thanks to the man whose lap Dick's feet were resting in as he lay stretched out on the couch in their swank hotel suite in Boston playing Candy Crush on his phone while Slade read a book with actual paper pages.

"Bruce is calling," Dick said in concern, automatically letting it go to voicemail.

Slade raised his eyebrow as he immediately set his book aside.

"Something happened," he grunted on intuition, reaching down to massage Dick's bare feet in a soothing caress.

"We'll handle it together, little bird. Ok?" Slade said, feeling the nervous tremors that were already coursing through Dick's muscles.

"Ok," Dick mumbled, blinking a little bit to fight off his anxious tears.

The slightest worries still set him on edge these days, and how was he ever going to find a way to explain that to Bruce? That he couldn't suit up as Nightwing (at the moment, Slade always reassured him, but Dick wasn't so sure) because his mentee Tarantula had done in minutes what none of the villains he'd ever faced as either Nightwing or Robin had managed - she'd broken the bird, leaving him a shuddering mess of PTSD and compromised abilities.

"Come here, kid," Slade ordered, tugging on Dick's legs until the younger man scooted down closer to him and allowed himself to be pulled to sitting and safely snuggled under Slade's arm.

"I've got you," Slade said. "Put it on speaker."

"Ok," Dick mumbled, burying his face into Slade's shoulder after hitting 'play.'

"Son," Bruce's recording started out, and oh.

Bruce didn't sound good. Shit. He was crying?

 _Not Jason. Please, not Jason,_ Dick's brain began whirring as his breathing sped up and Slade cradled him tighter.

"Stephanie Brown's dead," Bruce said, and Dick felt like an absolute asshole, but his breath flew out in a whoosh of relief and the tears that started to leak from his eyes were out of gratitude at first.

"I had let her become Robin," Bruce was saying, and then he was explaining and oh, God, it was awful.

Absolutely awful and Dick's throat got tight and then he was crying in earnest, for the right reasons, this time, although it didn't feel much better. Oh, God, Bruce - Dick and Alfred alone knew how wrecked Bruce had been when Jason had been killed, and this time, it sounded like Bruce might have actual grounds to blame himself, although of course, he shouldn't, because if Bruce blamed himself then Dick should blame himself, too, because -

"I should have been there," Dick burst out in a guilty sob. "Batman can't handle the city by himself. He could have called me for backup when he fired Steph if I'd been at home, and maybe we wouldn't have lost her, or we could have fixed things sooner and Black Mask never would have gotten her, or -"

"Kid," Slade gently interrupted, hugging him close. "It wasn't your fault."

"But maybe -" Dick started to say.

"Little bird," Slade said, and why _couldn't_ Dick let himself be happy with the man who made his stomach swirl with so much love and belonging and tenderness every time he uttered his affectionate nickname, Dick wondered.

Ever since his twenty-first birthday, Dick had been tied in knots over the fact that Slade wasn't his soulmate, because Dick had been desperately in love with the mercenary - now, even more so, since they'd spent the last year traveling together while Slade pieced Dick back together after Tarantula's rape.

Dick hadn't yet been ready to move forward into an out and out romance with Slade, though, feeling riddled with guilt at the idea of destroying his future soulmate's claim to happiness. Slade hadn't pushed him in the slightest and was, in fact, adamant that Dick not rush into any decisions that he might regret later until he'd come to terms with having his virginity raped away as well as made peace with the soulmate dilemma that was plaguing him. So, Dick and Slade hadn't had sex, despite sharing a bed every night where they spooned as chastely as a wizened old married couple.

But as Dick found Slade catching him once again when Robin tumbled wingless from the sky, Dick found himself wondering if it was time to come in for a permanent landing. He was never going to leave Slade; he knew that, now. Dick was sorry for his soulmate, but for once in his life, Dick wanted to be selfish and claim the love that he'd always longed to find, even if it had come in a different form than he'd once fervently believed it would.

"Everybody has to play the hand Fate deals them," Slade was saying to him, "and you and I both know she can be a real bitch. You weren't meant to be there this time, baby," Slade said gently as one hand brushed Dick's black hair back from his forehead in soothing strokes.

"I love you," Dick said, craning his head up so he could look into Slade's one eye.

"I love you, too, little bird," Slade said back easily as he continued to smooth his hair.

The aching longing in Dick's heart began to swell to unbearable levels as it mixed with his grief over poor Steph Brown and his heartache for Bruce, and oh, God, Jason and Tim, what must they be going through, and suddenly Dick couldn't stand it any more and he lunged forward and pressed his lips to Slade's in a needy kiss, his left hand clutching at Slade's shirt for only the briefest moment before sliding around the mercenary's neck to pull himself closer into their first kiss.

And Slade, God bless him, didn't pull back or try to stop him or ask him if he was sure, but immediately sunk deeper into the kiss, sliding his much more experienced tongue into Dick's mouth and stroking with sure, sexy but comforting thrusts as Dick's second arm found its way to cling to Slade's neck and his acrobatic legs swiveled around and pushed and pulled himself up until he was sitting sideways in Slade's lap.

Slade's arms were tight around his waist, now, and Dick was whimpering into the kiss in the midst of his hungry moans, feeling such a mix of sad and happy and heartbroken and relieved and above all, safety, that he never wanted to let go.

"I've resolved all my issues," Dick mumbled against the corner of Slade's mouth sometime later when they finally broke apart.

"Is that so?" Slade said, amused.

"Uh huh," Dick murmured, pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss into Slade's neck. "Fuck Fate," Dick sighed. "I'm sorry for my soulmate, but you're the one I need to be with," he said with resigned certainty.

"I feel the same way," Slade grinned into Dick's temple.

"Except for the feeling sorry for my soulmate part," the mercenary said after a beat.

"You asshole," Dick giggled.

"Hey, our soulmates, can fend for themselves just like we have," Slade pointed out. "It ain't our fault Fate was too stupid to mark us for each other."

"Mmf," Dick half-heartedly argued while he pecked more kisses along Slade's jaw. "I'm tired of fighting it," he admitted when he laid his head down on Slade's shoulder. "You're always here for me and I always want you to be."

"I always will be, kid," Slade promised.

* * *

Jason had been very pleased to wake up with a pajama-clad Black Bat still snuggled under his arm in the morning, curled up tight against his chest deep inside the mountain of blankets and pillows they'd used to fortify themselves against the dry-ice cold of the Steph-filled bathtub they were leaning against.

And Cass's legs were tangled up with his, too, Jason noted with absurdly delighted glee, and the fact that her pajamas were, in fact, Jason's own boxers and t-shirt made the morning absolutely top-notch in Jason's book, except for the Dead Robin sleeping behind them.

But Steph wasn't going to be dead for much longer if Jason and Cass had anything to say about it, so Jason decided that a little over-the-top heart-squiggling happiness was perfectly allowable and did not make him an asshole.

Cass shifted in his arms and blinked her eyes open.

"Morning," Jason smiled at her.

"Hi," Cass smiled back, warm and sleepy and fuck, Jason really wanted to kiss her.

But her best friend had just died so that would probably be a shitty thing to do, especially with Steph lying right there and all. Jason settled for some caressing strokes along Cass's back instead and… was that a little sigh escaping his Black Bat's throat?

Oh, it definitely was, and she was _nuzzling_ him now with her head, and - oh, fuck, her top leg was getting a little too close to his morning wood.

"Are you hungry?" Jason asked Cass, suavely rolling her off of him and - crap, she'd see it if he stood up, wouldn't she. Damned pajama pants.

"I can make breakfast while you take a shower, if you want," Jason offered.

"Ok," Cass said, still smiling until she glanced over her shoulder at Steph and sighed, reaching out to scritch her dead friend's head with her fingernails.

Jason took advantage of her distraction to stand up, discreetly angling his hips away from her, before escaping the bathroom.

"There's another shower in my bedroom you can use," Jason said to Cass from the hallway, artfully using the doorjamb as a disguise.

Cass reluctantly left Steph with a final hand through the hair and stood to follow Jason, who carefully stayed in front of her as he led her to another set of stairs.

"It's the only furnished room upstairs," Jason said, slinking behind the wall as he pointed the way out to her. "The other room's for storage. There's clean towels and shower stuff in the bathroom you can use. I'll start on breakfast," he said, quickly making a beeline for the kitchen.

Cass gave his back an amused glance before climbing the stairs. As if she didn't know what he was trying to hide, she giggled to herself. Hood was awfully cute when he was embarrassed, she thought contentedly.

She'd liked waking up with him. He made her feel all warm and cozy in a more flushed and enticingly delicious way than Steph ever had when they used to curl up on the couch together sharing a blanket and watching chick flicks, nothing more than two best friends and a bowl of popcorn.

Cass knew about soulmates, thanks to Steph, of course, but she loathed the idea, although that was one thing that she hadn't shared with her best friend. Steph was excited about meeting her soulmate one day, like most people were, it seemed, and Cass had felt shy about broaching her feelings on the Universe's dictatorial oversight that she hadn't even known existed until Steph had told her about it.

Steph had been a wealth of information about so many things that David Cain had denied knowledge of to his daughter.

Sex, for instance.

Steph had unabashedly asked Cass what she knew and didn't know once she'd come to understand how severely Cass had been abused and repressed, and then Steph had explained in gory detail, complete with internet pictures, all about sex, and pregnancy and childbirth and babies, too, of which Steph had actually had one!

Cass couldn't help but wonder why her friend who was so set on settling down with her soulmate one day had had sex in the first place, but Steph had shrugged.

"Stuff was shitty at home," she said. "My dad's friends had kidnapped me and my mom didn't even realize I was gone, and I met this guy Dean at the thrift store - he was older, not gonna lie - but he was really into me - which Tim said later was really fucked up and maybe even rape even though I wanted it, which really freaked me out and we had a fight about it - me and Tim, not me and Dean - but then I got worried Tim might be right which was why I didn't tell Dean about the baby, plus he'd left Gotham by then anyway - which kind of goes to show he was an asshole - but he _was_ really good at sex, though, oh my god, some guys aren't, apparently, which is another reason to wait for your soulmate - they say that in school, the teachers do, although, I don't know, because I think if a woman masturbates enough and learns her own body than she can direct a guy how to please her in bed, if he's not a selfish jerk, that is - but anyway, what was I saying?"

"Oh, why'd I have sex. Because I was sad and lonely, I guess, and mad at my parents, and tired of being ignored, like how do you not even realize your own daughter is _missing,_ helLO amirite? So I liked Dean paying attention to me and I liked having sex, too, although my mom wanted to make me wear a red A on my chest like in _The Scarlet Letter_ but she was totally stoned when she said that, because having a baby was gonna be a lot more obvious than a big red A, you know?"

"What's _The Scarlet Letter_? Oh, it's a book - you haven't read it? Oh, you're so lucky. We had to read it in English class and it was the _worst_ , all about this asshat calling shit on the woman he himself knocked up - Wait, what? You can't read? I'll teach you!"

Yes, Steph had taught Cass a lot. How to talk (as much as Cass could manage, which wasn't much, but Steph did more of the talking, anyway, and always understood Cass perfectly well - much like Hood, in fact); how to read (Cass still wasn't great at it, but she got by now, at least); and, the biology lesson that had finally come in handy, the fact that most guys woke up with an erection.

Cass missed her Steph, and she'd only been dead for a little over twenty-four hours. But… having Hood nearby helped. Kind of a lot.

* * *

Downstairs in the kitchen, Jason was heating up some pans while he sliced potatoes, feeling immensely relieved to have avoided an embarrassing situation with the cute girl he was crushing on, when his phone rang.

He frowned and walked over to grab it from the side-table where it was charging. Not many people had his number, for good reason. He glanced down at the caller ID and - oh, shit, it was Dick.

"Hello?" Jason said, quickly answering before it went to voicemail. "Dickie? You ok?"

Jason didn't want to admit it, but he missed his older brother like crazy. Dick had up and left town barely a year after Jason had come back home with his resurrected self, and it had hurt, despite the fact that they hadn't exactly gotten back on buddy-buddy terms yet, which was definitely Jason's fault and not Dick's, but still.

One morning last year, Jason had been startled to wake up to a text message from Dick saying that some shit had gone down (what shit, he hadn't specified) and that he needed some time to clear his head so he'd be out of town for a little while, but not to worry.

Jason had worried, of course, and had gone out to Bludhaven to nose around in Dick's apartment that same day, but had found it relatively undisturbed. Sloppy as usual, and Dickie had so many clothes that Jason couldn't really be sure if he had packed for a vacation or not, but his toothbrush and deodorant were gone, which gave him a good clue.

News of Blockbuster's demise had reached Jason's ears that morning through the Gotham grapevine but he had thought nothing of it, until he sniffed out a few contacts in Bludhaven to find out if anything big had gone down with Nightwing recently and learned that not only had his brother recently gotten himself his own little Robin named Tarantula (which was not a creepy name at all, nope), but that the woman was wasting no time in boasting around town that she'd single-handedly killed Blockbuster last night.

 _Interesting,_ Jason thought to himself.

He caught up with the lady herself a few hours later, alone in a run-down motel she'd probably thought was a perfectly good hideout until Red Hood had a gun to her head.

"What is the Hood doing in Bludhaven?" she'd asked him with a raised eyebrow, playing it nice and cool.

"What happened to Nightwing?" he asked her bluntly.

She jumped a little bit, which was kind of a stupid move to pull with a glock pointed at her temple.

"Something happened to him?" she said. "What? Is he ok?"

"Bitch, I'm asking you," Jason growled at her. "Talk."

"What do you want me to say? Where is my man?" she said somewhat frantically.

Jason pressed the barrel harder against her forehead.

"Tell me exactly what happened the last time you saw him," he said. "And when that was."

"Last night," Catalina breathed out in a panic. "After I killed Blockbuster. We made love on the roof and then I -"

"Wait, what?" Jason said, frowning hard. "Are you soulmates?"

"Soulmates?" Catalina said, now the one to frown. "Love is not constrained by soulmates. Nightwing is the love of my life, he is -"

"It's a yes or no question," Jason said tensely, not at all liking the way that nausea waves were suddenly cramping his stomach, because, oh God.

"Is. Nightwing. Your. Soulmate," Jason growled. "Is his name on your hip? Yes or no."

"No," Catalina said in annoyance, barely having time to furrow her brow before a bullet had blown through it.

"Fuck," Jason breathed out, dropping to the floor as his stomach rolled. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. Not Dick," he muttered to himself. "Not Dickie. Fuck," he began to cry, curling up into himself and screaming into the bedspread as he beat his hand against the mattress.

Jason hadn't been surprised when Bruce had called him a few weeks later to say that Dick had resigned from the force and left town to see the world. Especially not since Dick had texted Jason the exact same thing a whole week prior, reiterating that his little brother shouldn't worry and that Dick was fine and everything was good, just peachy keen, just like always, Little Wing.

Right, sure, uh huh.

His big bro had continued to send Jason his never-ending stream of memes and gifs and stupid YouTube videos and even the occasional selfie since he'd been gone, but fuck it, Jason missed him and he hoped like hell that nothing else had gone wrong, because even though Dick would send him brief sporadic texts, he'd never once called and Jason was scared to admit how worried he was.

"Little Wing," he heard his brother's voice say, and dammit, Jason really didn't want to cry.

"What happened?" he growled out instead. "Are you ok? Do I need to come kick someone's ass?"

"No, I'm ok," Dick said, sounding confused. "I was worried about _you_."

"Me?" Jason said, frowning. "Why? I'm fine."

Dick paused.

"Bruce called me," he said slowly. "He said Steph Brown died and you found her and tried to help…"

"Oh, that," Jason said, letting out his anxious breath now that he knew that Dick was ok, even though he still had to rub his nose like he was the stupid hero-worshipping Replacement all fucking overcome at hearing Dick Grayson's voice.

"Yeah," Dick was saying though, sounding even more concerned. "That," he said cautiously. "I know it must be really hard on you, Jason," Dick said. "I can't even imagine what you're going through. I'm on my way home," he said reassuringly. "I should be in Gotham by tonight."

"Oh," Jason said. "Ok. Good," he said, thinking rapidly. "That's good," he hedged, rubbing the back of his head.

God damn it, of all the goddamn times for Dick to come home, Jason thought grumpily. He was gonna fuck everything up, Jason just knew it.

Because his plan depended in part on the Replacement and the Replacement would probably be at the funeral home tonight with Steph's mom since he was the only one Crystal had known unmasked, which meant Robin would be at either Wayne Manor or maybe his parents' house after, but if Dick was here the kid was gonna want to see Nightwing, and Dick would want to see Jason, and actually, Dick would insist on seeing Jason and Tim together, because that's how Dickiebird was, gathering in all the baby chicks under his hen wings, and if Jason let slip his plan then Dick would absolutely, positively, not let him go; and, if Papa Dick was around, the Replacement might even be the one to spill the beans to him, accidentally or on purpose, could go either way with that kid, and then Dick would tell Bruce, or - oh God, _Alfred_ \- Jason shuddered at the thought - and then Steph would stay dead and everything would be fucked and -

"Lemme talk to Slade," Jason said in a panic.

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

"Dickie?" Jason said again. "Lemme talk to Slade. Professional to professional. Absolutely nothing to do with anything you should be concerned about at all. Put him on."

The silence stretched on as dead as Steph.

"Dude!" Jason said louder. "Did the call get dropped? Put Slade on."

"How do you know I'm with Slade?" Dick said in a taut voice.

"Ummm…" Jason said.

Oh, crap. Well…

"I kind of maybe hired him to find you and check up on you last year?" Jason said hesitantly.

"When?" Dick said in a funny voice.

"After you sent me the text about quitting the force and leaving for good," Jason said.

"Oh," Dick said, sounding oddly relieved. "Not until then?"

"No," Jason said. "Until then, I figured you were coming back."

"So, wait," Dick said. "How do you know he's with me right now, then? If that was last year?"

Jason mentally groaned.

"Look, Big Wing," he said, "I might have run my mouth to Slade a little more than I should have when I hired him, but it was only because I was worried about you, ok? Because I know you pretend like you can't stand each other, but you and Grandpa Pirate are actually friends."

"Grandpa Pirate…?" Dick said slowly, some amusement lacing his voice.

"Don't change the subject," Jason fussed. "Look, Dickie, I know about Catalina, ok? I was worried and I told Slade and I know I shouldn't have and I'm sorry, but I was really scared you might off yourself or something, and I trusted him not to tell anyone else. I was kind of freaking out," he admitted very uncomfortably.

Dick's breathing was coming heavier on the other end of the phone.

"How - you knew?" Dick whispered. "And you were worried about me? Little Wing," Dick said in a crumbling voice and then Dickie was crying.

Well, that was just great, wasn't it.

"Gahhhhhhh!" Jason screamed to the wall as he held the phone away from his mouth and kicked his couch.

" _Please_ let me talk to Slade," Jason begged when he brought the phone back up to his ear and Dick was still weeping away.

"No, you have to wait," Dick sulked back at him. "I get to enjoy knowing that my little brother cares about me for as long as I want."

"Is that why you're crying?" Jason said in disbelief as his jaw dropped. "Because you're happy? Oh, my God, dude, at least put me on speaker so we can talk business while you cry," he groaned, rolling his eyes up into his head.

"How did you know?" Dick asked him a few seconds later, though, apparently without complying with his little brother's request.

"I tracked Tarantula down and found out," Jason said.

"You couldn't have," Dick said in confusion. "She was already dead by the time I got back to Bludhaven to clear out my apartment and that was before I texted you about leaving."

"I found her the first time you texted me," Jason said. "The week before."

"Jason," Dick said, sounding absolutely stunned. "Why -"

"Because I was worried about you, ok?" Jason snapped. "I was worried and I went to Bludhaven looking for answers and I found them and I didn't like them so I put a bullet in her head. Ok? Just like Pops should've done for me but he didn't."

"Trust you to bring it back to Bruce," Dick chuckled quietly.

"Well," Jason sulked. "It's only fair."

"I know, Little Wing," Dick said soothingly. "I just can't believe - and you never said anything?"

"I said it," Jason grumbled. "I said it to Slade. Can I please talk to him now? Will it kill you to put him on?"

Dick paused.

"I don't know if I'm happy about you killing her," he said softly, "but I know I'm not mad."

"Good," Jason sighed. "Slade?"

"Boy, what the fuck do you need to talk to me about so badly?" the mercenary was grumbling into his ear a second later.

"Oh, thank fuck," Jason said in relief. "Finally. It's about goddamn time."

"So get the fuck on with it," Slade growled back at him. "My time is money, as you damn well know."

"No shit, old man," Jason snarked. "Look. I have a plan to bring my little Dead Robin back to life but I have to involve the Replacement in it - not for the League of Assassins part, but on the Gotham end of things. If Dick comes back to town the goddamn kid is gonna tell his hero allllll about what we're up to and then Dick will tell Bruce or Alfred or both and I'll get grounded and Steph will stay dead."

"You'll get grounded…" Slade said with dry amusement.

"Bitch, you know what I mean," Jason snapped at him. "Your job is to keep Dick the fuck out of it."

"You know my fees," Slade said calmly.

"You motherfucker," Jason growled at him. "Send me the goddamn routing number."

"Pleasure doing business, Hood," Slade said with a smirk as he hung up the phone.

* * *

Dick looked at Slade.

"Well? Care to explain to me how Jason knew you were with me? Because I'm still not clear on that part," Dick said. "He doesn't know about -" he broke off, biting his lip.

"Our mutual feelings of love and attraction?" Slade gently teased, reaching out and swiping his thumb over Dick's lower lip. "No. He thinks I'm training you. Finishing the apprenticeship you bailed on back in Titans."

"What?" Dick said, wrinkling his brow. "But - Jason knows I wouldn't kill anyone."

"He knows," Slade shrugged. "Doesn't mean you can't stand to learn a lot from me and it was an answer that satisfied him when he called wanting me to keep tabs on you. Makes sense you'd want to keep up with your skills even if you're not actively fighting crime. Hell, especially if you're not, to do something with all that hurt and anger," Slade said, running his fingers through the hair on the back of Dick's head.

"I can't believe he knew all this time," Dick said numbly as he sunk his head deeper into Slade's caress. "And that he killed Catalina."

"He's a good kid," Slade said and Dick smiled.

"You would say that," he said. "Bruce and I have been worried about him, since he came back to life."

"Seems like he's doing all right to me," Slade said. "Saved me a hit, after all."

Dick looked up at his boyfriend.

"You know I would've killed that bitch if she hadn't already been dead by the time we got back to Bludhaven," Slade said matter-of-factly.

"You big romantic," Dick said affectionately, leaning forward to wrap his arms around Slade's neck for a kiss.

Because maybe Dick didn't feel so great about his little brother killing someone on his behalf, but to hear his assassin boyfriend talk about protecting him? Yeah, that did make his heart feel a little warm and fuzzy, moral qualms be damned.

Besides, it wasn't like Slade had actually done it, so Dick didn't have to be angry at him.

* * *

"Hood?" Cass said hesitantly.

He turned around to see her standing in the living room, back in his t-shirt and boxers although her hair was wet now, from her shower.

"Ok?" she asked, coming up to him.

"Kind of," Jason sighed. "More or less?" he said. "Maybe? My brother's coming back to town 'cause he heard about Steph. He's Nightwing," Jason added but Cass nodded like she knew who he was.

"We need the Replacement's help with stealing the plane to get us to the League, and he fuckin' adores Dick so he's super inclined to run his mouth to him," Jason groaned. "And then Dick's gonna freak out about me possibly getting killed again and try to stop me from going, so I'm hiring his buddy Slade to keep him out of it."

"S..ade?" Cass worked out of her uncooperative jaw.

"Yeah, Deathstroke. You know him?" Jason asked her, looking down at his phone as it pinged with the routing number to Slade's Cayman Islands account.

He grumbled low under his breath as he tapped out the money transfer and hit send.

"The things I fucking do for Dickie," he muttered to himself.

"Know," Cass said, patting Jason's arm to call his attention back to herself. "Sade kill dad."

"What?" Jason said, his eyebrows hitting the roof. "Slade is the one who killed your dad?"

Cass nodded.

"He didn't kill you, too?" Jason said stupidly, because obviously Slade didn't if Cass was standing here, but it wasn't like Deathstroke to leave a contract unfulfilled.

"Not job," Cass shrugged. "Dad."

"Wow," Jason said, wondering who exactly might have wanted David Cain dead but not his even more ruthlessly talented daughter.

"Help," Cass said. "Want…" she trailed off, searching for the word.

"He wanted to make you his apprentice?" Jason guessed and grinned when Cass's eyes went as big as if he was a psychic.

"Yeah, he did that once to Dick, too," Jason said. "I'm not supposed to know about that, but I do," he said with a sly grin. "Dickie's with him again now, training. He, um, he -" Jason paused.

It was one thing to share Dick's secret with Slade. The two men had a long history together and Jason had known in his heart that Slade would watch out for Dick even harder if he knew the truth about his assault. But Cass hadn't even met Dick yet, and even though Jason liked her, he wasn't sure, so…

"No say," Cass said, laying a hand on his arm. "Ok," she said.

"Thanks," Jason said in relief. "I would, I just don't know if Dick would want me to tell."

"Ok," Cass smiled at him. "Food?" she asked and Jason jumped.

"Aw, shit, I forgot 'cause Dickie called," he said, running back into the kitchen, where his pans were blazing hot, but fortunately, due to being cast iron, not burned.

"Can you finish cutting the potatoes up?" Jason asked her as he moved to get eggs out of the refrigerator.

Cass nodded and began wielding the knife with a deadly speed and precision that made Jason smile and she noticed and smiled back at him and Jason liked her so much, he really did, and maybe he was kind of glad after all that Dick was coming back to town even if it might make their quest more complicated.

Because if Dick was back before they left, then Dick could meet Cass, and maybe if Jason was going to take a risk on dating Cass a full two years before knowing if she was his soulmate or not, then maybe he'd kind of like his big brother to meet her and give him a thumbs up or at least let him know that he wouldn't hate Jason forever for potentially bailing on the fairy tale ending.

Poor Dickie had learned the hard way, after all, that some dreams don't come true, so maybe he'd try to understand where Jason was coming from, wanting to pursue the girl he was progressively becoming crazier and crazier about who would fit perfectly into his vigilante lifestyle instead of letting her go and taking a chance on Fate being kind to him in two years.

As if that bitch had ever been kind to him before.

As Cass finished slicing the potatoes and came over to pour herself a cup of coffee, she raised a mug up to ask Jason what he wanted in his.

"Just black, thanks," Jason said and she smiled at him and slid the first mug over to him.

"There's milk in the fridge," Jason said, thinking, "and I've got sugar in the pantry, I guess, if you want it," but Cass shook her head no and poured a second cup of black.

She set it down carefully before turning and wrapping her arms tight around Jason's waist as he stirred the eggs at the stove, and holy fuck, Jason hoped Dick would understand, because Hood was falling damn hard for Black Bat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> All of you beautiful commenters are the BEST EVER!!! The wind beneath my wings! (haha wings on the brain after this chapter <3 ) 
> 
> Fanfiction writers are thirsty vampires and comments are our lifeblood. 🧛🩸😁  
> (But if you are mean, we will cut a bitch. Cuz we are vampires rawr 🦇)
> 
> You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble. Come say hi!


	11. You're As Sick As Your Secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some time skips - we go back to TimKon first, picking up right after the events of Ch. 6. 
> 
> The middle section takes place after the Ch. 7 flashback, for anyone who wants to reread those two chapters.

_The night before_

Tim and Conner had somewhat bashfully survived changing into their pajamas for bed, Tim changing in the bedroom while Conner changed in the bathroom, but the experience was so much less embarrassing than Lex's sex talk had been that the slight awkwardness felt minimal.

"I'm so glad you're here and I met you," Conner said when Tim climbed under the covers next to him.

"Me, too," Tim smiled back at him, getting ready to go in for a kiss when there was a knock at the door.

Tim cautiously scooted back to his side of the bed before Conner yelled "Come in!"

Lex came in with a tender, affectionate smile on his face directed mainly at Conner, but then he looked at Tim, too, and smiled with so much warmth in his eyes that Tim felt himself tearing up.

His mom used to look at him fondly, Tim had belatedly realized after her death when the only familial regard remaining to him was his father's distant, unaffected gaze that was so chilly in comparison to the sunny light that used to shine out of his mother's eyes.

Especially in their vacation photos, Tim had discovered, when he would sit crying over them after school while his father was still at work in the days and weeks following his mom's death - the photos that he now felt so guilty over resenting - because in almost all of them his mother's eyes weren't on the camera at all, but on Tim. Her smiles had been perfectly poised and posed, that was true, but the sheer affection in her eyes for her son, and the pleasure that she felt in sharing these moments with him, Tim had never noticed in the photos until she was gone.

He gulped as Lex came over to the bed, not wanting to cry again but fearing that he couldn't help it, and Lex was - what? Ohmygod.

Lex was honest to goodness snugging the covers in tight around Conner to tuck him in, and smoothing Conner's now washed and silky hair back and kissing his forehead and saying, "I love you, son," like it was a promise that he meant more than anything in the world and would back up with whatever Lex Luthor treachery was needed to fulfill it, and Conner was saying that he loved his dad, too, and Tim didn't want Lex to be a super-villain.

He liked him too much.

Especially because Lex was coming over to Tim's side of the bed, to Tim's shock, and tucking Tim's covers in just like he had Conner's, and Lex was smoothing Tim's hair back, too, but they weren't Lex's eyes at all that were looking lovingly down at Tim, they were his mom's, and Tim was bawling and wrapping his arms around Lex's slightly surprised but very willing frame and clinging to him, sobbing, as Lex gently sat down on the bed and hugged Tim back so tightly; and then Conner was crawling over and hugging Tim from behind, and Tim had never felt so surrounded by love, except for when Steph used to squeeze the life out of him with her bone-crunching hugs, and Tim was never going to get hugged like that by Steph again so he was crying even harder, but Lex and Conner kept him in their hug sandwich without hesitation and without slacking off on their comforting embrace for as long as Tim sobbed, which was a really, really, long damn time.

When Tim finally drew back after his choking tears had quieted down, Lex cupped the back of his neck and said, "I love you, son. You're my boy now, as much as Conner is, and I will always be here for you."

Tim couldn't help the shiver of affection for Lex that coursed through his gaping heart.

"How can you love me already?" Tim asked Lex, though, as he wiped his nose on his arm, which prompted Conner to bolt off the bed a little faster than seemed normal to grab the box of tissues from the bathroom.

"You just met me," Tim said to Lex before accepting the tissues from his soulmate with a grateful, albeit watery, smile.

"Love is a choice," Lex said, raising his eyebrows with a little bit of surprise. "It's what you do; how you decide to act. Anyone who thinks love is a feeling is - misinformed," he ended far more gently than he had perhaps been intending to, seeming to realize at the last minute that he was about to insult his son-in-law with his rancor against - who?

Clearly, some unnamed party had earned Lex Luthor's scorn. Conner's mom, maybe? Tim wondered. She obviously wasn't in the picture and Lex had only discovered that he had a son a few years ago, Tim knew. Lex had to feel a ton of resentment towards Conner's mom for hiding her pregnancy from him, not to mention suddenly abandoning Conner. Unless maybe she had died, too?

Tim would have to ask Conner at some point when he wasn't so weepy about his own mom.

But for now, he blew his nose and smiled up at Lex and allowed himself to be tucked back in, along with Conner, by his surprisingly (and disturbingly - worryingly -) good-hearted yet utterly villainous father-in-law, who pulled the door shut after him when he left the room with a final "Good night, boys. Love you both."

Tim sniffed in the dark.

"Your dad's amazing," he couldn't help saying to Conner, with an honesty that he wished he didn't feel.

"Super amazing," Conner agreed, reaching across the bed for Tim. "Come here and snuggle," he invited, and Tim gratefully wriggled under the covers into Conner's waiting arms.

Tim sighed with contentment as he laid his head down on Conner's chest, his soulmate's arms wrapping around him with loving pets to his back and hair and -

"Oh, wow," Tim breathed out when Conner's hand slid over his hip where his soulmark would one day appear.

Electric sparks seemed to be crackling up through his skin in an aching but wonderful burn.

"I feel it, too," Conner said breathlessly, now playing with his fingertips on Tim's hip, tracing slow lines back and forth to find the edges and shape of Tim's mark. "It burns and tingles," Conner said in awe.

"Let me do yours," Tim grinned in the dark, shifting himself to lay fully on top of Conner (which, hello, Conner's cock, meet Tim's cock - oh, sorry, just passing by, can't stop to chat) so he could reach down to Conner's left hip to palm it, searching for the soulspot.

"Oh!" Tim said in surprise when a flash of heat met his hand. "That's really hot!" he exclaimed.

Conner snickered.

"I mean," Tim said, blushing in the dark, "well, you know what I mean," he mumbled.

"You're hot, too, babe," Conner teased, reaching his left hand up to thread in Tim's hair so he could pull him down into a kiss; and their previous kisses had been pretty awesome, but with their right hands massaging each other's soulspots, making out suddenly became much more than sweet affection.

Tim wanted - no, he _craved_ Conner, and his chest caught on fire as their tongues tangled together and the heat spread down to his belly and then lower still, and Tim didn't even realize that his fingers were cramping from how hard he was gripping Conner's hip until he suddenly jerked away, embarrassed, with the awkward realization that he was grinding his now hard erection against - oh.

Against Conner's.

Oops.

"Sorry," Tim mumbled, thankful that Conner couldn't see how red he was blushing as he scrambled off of him.

"It's ok," Conner said, his breathing a little hard as he sat up, too.

"Timmy. Babe," Conner said more firmly when Tim wouldn't turn back around to face him.

"Hey. Baby, it's ok," Conner soothed, scootching up next to Tim and tugging him into his side. "I liked it," Conner said when Tim didn't respond, other than by very cautiously laying his head down on Conner's shoulder.

Conner hesitated.

"We don't have to do that yet, Timmy," he said gently. "But I really didn't mind it," he grinned into his boyfriend's hair. "So if that's why you're embarrassed, you don't need to be."

"Ok," Tim mumbled, the hot prickles of shame still needling his face and chest and back, and not just because sex was new and he was still getting used to the fact that Conner Luthor, hottest boy in school, was his Premarked Soulmate.

No, Tim also felt ashamed because how was Conner going to feel one day when he learned that Tim had been Robin? Or when Tim one day in the future had to help the Justice League take down his dad? Or - or - and if they had sex - and then Conner found out - but Lex - so confusing - and Bruce hadn't saved Steph - he'd _fired_ her - and - and -

"What's wrong, sweetie?" Conner said as he rubbed circles on Tim's arms.

Tim sniffed.

"Everything, I think," he whispered brokenly in the dark.

* * *

_Three years ago_

"Thank you for letting me visit," Kal said humbly as he made his way over to Bruce, seated at the BatComputer.

The Bat's eyes were guarded when he nodded his head, but he wasn't wearing the cowl, and that was something, Superman supposed.

Clark sat down in the chair opposite Bruce's and took a deep breath as he lifted his eyes up to his (hopefully not former) best friend's.

"I'm so truly sorry for what I said about Jason," Kal said hoarsely. "I didn't mean it. I was angry and I felt hurt and betrayed and it was a stupid, mean, horrible thing to say, and I'm so sorry, Bruce."

A muscle in Bruce's jaw worked.

"I understand," he said calmly.

Too calmly. Damn his Bat control, Kal thought to himself, hopelessly wishing that he possessed at least a fraction of Bruce's restraint, because tears were clogging his eyes and throat and his breaths were coming way too fast.

"I - I hope we can still be friends," Clark whispered into the silence of the BatCave.

Bruce cocked his head to the side as he regarded Kal-El of Krypton.

"I understand why you said what you did to me," he said finally, "but I don't understand your feelings about Conner Luthor. And frankly, I don't care to be friends with someone who would treat a child that way."

Kal shivered and blinked hard. He went so far as to rub his nose on his uniform sleeve before drawing a raggedy breath.

"Lois and I have been trying to have a baby for the last five years," he said softly.

"Oh, shit," Bruce said in horror, his eyes opening wide.

Kal swallowed.

"We've been working with Doctor Mid-Nite," he said as a few tears began slipping down his cheeks, "but…" he trailed off and stared listlessly at the ground.

"I was enraged," Kal said after several long minutes of silence went by, which Batman naturally didn't feel motivated to break.

"Enraged, and heartbroken, and devastated, and furious - and standing smack dab in Lex Luthor's living room with this _thing -_ my son - my SON, Bruce! - a son I should have had with Lois. A son I'd been trying to have for the last five years with my soulmate. A son created with my worst enemy's DNA - calling me his _Dad_ -" Clark spat the word out.

Bruce grimaced.

"You are his dad, though," he said. "At least, physiologically you're his father. His dad, not so much anymore."

"No," Kal scowled, "and I don't want to be. I'm sorry, Bruce, but I don't. I hate him. I know it's not fair and it's not his fault and it's not even rational, but I hate him. I'm sorry I lied to you and the team about what he was. I'm sorry I tried to lock him up on the Watchtower. But I'm not sorry for hating him. Do you know how hard Lois cried when I had to tell her about him?"

"I can imagine," Bruce said quietly. "And I'm not without sympathy, Kal, despite what you might think," he sighed. "But hate Amanda Waller. Hate Cadmus. Don't hate the boy. Do you have any idea what they were doing to him while he was their prisoner?"

"I don't care," Kal sulked. "I don't want to know anything about him."

"Pain trials," Bruce said as if Superman hadn't spoken. "Endurance tests. Weapons tests, to see how much he could take. And when they determined just how badly they could attack him before he was too weak to fight back, they'd repeat the trials the next day with kryptonite, and the day after that with more kryptonite, and so on, for the sake of knowing everything they could about their so-called weapon's defense capabilities," Bruce said in a clipped voice.

"He was their prisoner for over a year, Kal," the Bat said. "Hell of a lot for a child to go through, only to get threatened with reimprisonment as soon as he's rescued."

Kal was silent. Bruce sighed.

"Do you want Cadmus's research and protocols for how they created him?" Batman asked.

Kal's eyes flicked up to Bruce's, hope warring with disgust and mingled with guilt-stricken gratitude.

"They never manufactured an infant, although it appears that wasn't their goal," Bruce cautioned. "They wanted an adolescent or even an adult, someone who could be weaponized faster. And… there were a lot of failures," he added somberly.

Clark gaped.

"Did they -"

"Killed them. Yes," Bruce grunted, looking slightly nauseated.

Clark swallowed down some bile, not wanting to ask what he suspected that he already knew.

"I - I would appreciate the research, Bruce," he said in a shaky voice. "We both would. Lois and I."

Batman nodded.

"I'll send the files to Doctor Mid-Nite, then," he said. "But Kal?"

Superman looked at him questioningly.

"Don't fuck up your second kid the way you fucked up your first."

Kal met Bruce's steely eyes with regretful ones.

"Maybe I can work on my attitude towards Conner," he mumbled slowly.

"You do that," said Batman, turning back to the Batcomputer.

"Thank you, Bruce," Kal said quietly, hesitating for a moment before laying a tentative hand on the Bat's shoulder, which promptly earned him a snarky, offended glare.

"Friends don't touch each other," Batman growled.

"Right," Kal said quickly, rapidly withdrawing his hand. "Of course not. My mistake."

Batman's derisive snort wasn't nearly quiet enough that Superman would have needed his super-hearing to pick it up, and Kal supposed that meant that he was forgiven.

If only he could forgive the clone for existing as easily as Bruce managed to forgive Kal for being a terrible friend… Kal would have thought that Superman could out-forgive Batman any day of the week that ended in -y, but apparently humble pie was today's lunch menu special, and it did not go down nearly as easily as his Ma's apple pies did, and Clark had a feeling that digesting his just desserts was going to be a stomachache and a half.

* * *

_Yesterday afternoon_

"Kal?" Bruce's raspy voice sounded so defeated that Clark hardly recognized it.

"Bruce," the reporter said back from the privacy of the roof of _The Daily Planet_. "I heard about Spoiler," Clark said compassionately.

"It's my fault," Bruce mumbled. "I fired her as Robin. She started the gang wars and I lost track of her and Black Mask captured her and tortured her - he _tortured_ her, Kal, for days! God knows how long. She was only sixteen," Bruce said numbly. "A year older than Jason."

"I'm so sorry, Bruce," Clark said gently.

"You were right," Bruce muttered.

"About what?" Clark said, furrowing his brow.

He couldn't recall any conversations he'd had with Batman about his new Robin, other than the fact that the Bat had gotten one after Tim Drake's father had pulled the plug on Robin the Third.

"About me putting kids in capes," Bruce said. "I get them killed."

"Oh, Bruce, no -" Clark said, tears filling his eyes as he remembered his hurtful words to his best friend, uttered so many years ago in the Batcave in front of Jason's memorial.

"Yes," the Bat argued with him. "I do. It's my fault. Leslie said so. You said so. Jason said so. I shouldn't - I should have listened to you. You were right."

"Bruce," Clark said again. "Spoiler was out there on the streets long before she became Robin."

"Doesn't matter," Bruce grumbled. "She didn't go around starting gang wars trying to prove herself to Batman before I made her Robin - and then fired her."

"Ok," Clark said slowly, "but you told me she broke into the Batcave and begged to be Robin."

"Why are you defending me, Kal?" Bruce sighed. "I don't deserve it. Steph's dead."

Clark was silent for a moment.

"I know I can't convince you right now that you're a good person, Bruce," he said finally, "but know that I still believe it and will always believe it, because it's the truth."

Batman snorted derisively, but Clark didn't take offense.

"I hate to bring more bad news," Clark said nervously, swallowing hard.

"What?" Batman said, instantly tense and alert. "I didn't get a League alert," the detective said tautly, tapping rapidly away on the Batcomputer in the background.

"You wouldn't have, about this," Clark sighed. "I just overheard it at work. My day job," he clarified. "Tim Drake and Conner Luthor are Premarked."

"Oh, _fuck_ ," Bruce said in horror.

"Yeah," Clark said grimly. "Lex is calling in a favor, having Cat Grant do an interview with them. For a kind reason, actually," Clark said, grimacing at the thought and knowing that if he were human, he'd be getting one of Lois's migraines right now.

"Lex wants Cat to spin Stephanie positively, given her colorful background," Clark said, "to protect Tim's feelings, apparently," he muttered with just the slightest bit of snark intended towards Lex, not Tim, which he was sure that Bruce understood.

"How is Tim?" Bruce said with concern. "He hung up on me earlier today when I called to tell him about Steph. I know he must be taking it hard."

"I haven't seen him," Clark clarified. "The interview's tomorrow morning. I just, um, listened in on the conversation."

"Finally, Superman breaks some rules of etiquette," Batman snarked under his breath, making Clark smile.

Bruce picking on him was a good sign. His friend had sounded practically lethargic at the beginning of their call.

"I guess you can't tag along on the interview…?" Batman asked him only semi-hopefully.

Clark sighed.

"You know I can't," he said. "We don't know for sure that Lex knows my identity, but if he does, well… and I don't belong around Conner, anyway," Clark said quietly. "I need to honor the terms of my sentence. I've already caused the boy enough harm."

"Ok," Bruce said heavily. "You're right, of course. I just -" he groaned, sounding lost and confused and so unlike himself that Clark's throat constricted.

"I could fly over to Gotham tonight," Clark offered. "Help with patrol, keep you company?"

"No," Bruce said. "Thank you -" and the depth of Bruce's despair pierced Kal's heart, because when had Bruce ever thanked him for anything? "- but I need to be alone right now," Batman finished saying.

"I understand," Clark said. "If you need me, I'm just a shout away, though."

"Nosy bastard," Bruce teased, prompting the corners of Kal's mouth to curl up slightly.

"I would expect that Tim is coming back to Gotham for the funeral," Clark said to Bruce. "You'll talk to him then, I guess? And let me know how it goes? I'm sure he must be concerned about his sudden relationship to Lex."

Batman grunted.

"As if he hasn't been through enough already," Bruce said. "One more kid I fucked up."

"Bruce, no -" Clark tried to say, but the Bat had hung up.

* * *

_Last night_

"What's 'everything' that's wrong?" Conner asked Tim gently, still holding him in his arms as they sat side by side in bed. "You can tell me, Timmy. Whatever it is," Conner softly pleaded.

Tim blinked his tears away. Part of him wanted to, he really wanted to. Conner was so excited about being Premarked and so clearly already adored Tim and Tim didn't really expect Robin to bother Conner in and of itself, but Conner was so close to his dad, and Tim didn't know if he could ask - or trust - his brand-new soulmate to hide something so big from Lex - especially if Conner didn't know that Lex was a villain.

Besides, Tim was at this very moment sleeping (trapped, one might extrapolate) in Lex's penthouse. Not the best place for secret identity reveals.

But once they were back in Gotham…

"I'll tell you tomorrow," Tim said, turning his head to look into Conner's (beautiful, amazing, even-when-hidden-by-moonlight-and-shadows) eyes.

"Ok," Conner said with relief, leaning into Tim's lips for a soft kiss. "I don't care what it is, babe; I've got your back," the teenager said firmly.

"...always?" Tim said hesitantly, winding his fingers around the collar of Conner's t-shirt.

"Always," Conner said in surprise. "Of course. You're my soulmate, Timmy. You come first," he said as if it should be obvious.

Tim buried his face in the crook of Conner's neck and let his arms slip around his boyfriend.

"Promise?" he whispered in Conner's ear.

"Promise," Conner said, and Tim wanted to believe him.

He just wasn't sure he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are love and energy and rev me up so much!!! Thank you all who have been leaving them so far! They mean so much. 
> 
> Btw, I'm working hard on Ch. 49 of Red Knight at the moment, and that whole fic should wrap up with Ch. 51 before Christmas. My gift to myself and to you all! 
> 
> In the meantime, I'm hoping to get Fate pouring out fast again in between working on Red Knight and Light in the Dark. Got a bit slowed down the end of October with longfic updates and some exchange fics but don't have much else going on anymore besides my longfics, so looking forward to some great weeks of increased productivity going forward!
> 
> Fanfiction writers are thirsty vampires and comments are our lifeblood. 🧛🩸😁  
> (But if you are mean, we will cut a bitch. Cuz we are vampires rawr 🦇)
> 
> You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble. Come say hi!


	12. Seeing Things Crystal Clear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're keeping track of the timeline - Steph died on Sunday night. Bruce calls Tim Monday afternoon and then Tim and Conner find out they're soulmates; Cass confronts Bruce Monday night and then meets Jason; on Tuesday Bruce calls Dick and then Dick calls Jason, who drags Slade into the phone call. 
> 
> This chapter flashes back to Crystal's POV all day on Monday, the day after Steph died.

_Earlier Monday morning_

Crystal jumped out of her seat at the rap on the glass window. Shit, she must've dozed off, or spaced out, or something.

Arthur was sitting in front of her, his ear to the visitor's phone and a look of surprise-mingled-worry on his face. Crystal sighed and picked up her phone receiver.

"Hey, Arty," she mumbled.

"Crys," Cluemaster said back cautiously. "Kinda surprised to see you here, babe. What's up?" Arthur said.

"Stephie's dead," Crystal said flatly.

God, it felt weird to say that out loud. Like she was living in a soap opera. The whole damn morning felt like a soap, come to think of it, because who the fuck goes to Arkham Asylum to tell their no-good-wannabe-criminal-husband that their daughter's dead, anyway?

And he had to be behind bulletproof glass. Of course he did. Not like Fate could cut Crystal a break so she could sock the sucker right in the jaw for dragging their Stephie into all this shit, getting her running around in capes and becoming a hero as her final act of teenage rebellion.

Crystal had dared to hope that Stephie's teenage pregnancy was the last of her wild child days. As if, as the kids said. Did kids still say that? Crystal didn't know. She said it, anyway. As if.

Oh, was somebody talking to her? Oh, fuck, it was Arty again.

"What?" Crystal said very coherently into the phone with great annoyance.

"Stephie's dead?" Arthur said in almost a shout, and Crystal was kind of hungover, not gonna lie, but it seemed like Arty might be freaking out a little bit.

He'd better keep it down, or he'd get a nightstick to the head, is what he'd get.

Scratch that, keep hollerin, Arty, Crystal thought. Make a big scene. Get a nice big duck egg from a guard. Would be the least of what he deserved, after all.

"Yeah," Crystal spat back at the man Fate had paired her with. "Yeah, Arty. Our baby girl is dead because you are a motherfuckin piece of shit. Had to go out there thinkin you were somebody when you was nothin and nobody, huh? Way to set an example, you jackass."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Arthur snapped. "What the fuck happened to Steph?" he said in a panic.

"Black Mask killed her!" Crystal yelled right back at her soulmate. "He tortured our baby girl to death, shit head. Drilled into all her vital organs," Crystal said, her voice cracking on the last part.

"What the hell?" Arthur panted, starting to hyperventilate now.

Yeah, Crystal knew that feeling. Been there, done that, had no sympathy. Nope, none, because it hadn't been her fault that Stephie died. It was the asshole sittin right in front of her's.

"Why did Roman do that? She's really dead? Oh, God," Arthur said, putting his hand in his mouth and biting down hard on it. "I ain't never had no beef with Black Mask, baby, you gotta believe me -"

"It wasn't about you, dumbass!" Crystal shrieked at him.

A guard stepped closer and gave Crystal a look.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Crystal babbled. "Our daughter's dead, I'm a little distraught."

The guard's face only softened the slightest bit.

"Keep it down," she warned.

"Yes ma'am, yeah, yes, ok," Crystal said before turning back to Arthur and whisper-shrieking into the phone this time - "Did you know she was Spoiler?"

"Who?" Arthur said dumbly.

Tears were leaking from his eyes and he looked like he was working pretty damn hard to keep it together, chewing on his hand and side-eyeing the inmates on visitor's calls next to him, and looking over at the guards at the door. Like he had face to save. Whatever. Everyone in Arkham had to know that Arty was a little bitch. Hell, Crystal wondered whose bitch he was.

"Who was Spoiler, Crystal?" Arthur snapped impatiently.

"Hey! You watch your tone with me," Crystal said angrily. "Stephie was Spoiler, you stupid dumbass. She was Spoiler and then she was -"

\- and Crystal's brain was fuzzy and drug-addled, yes it was, but the Bat had told her not to tell Arthur - or anybody - about Stephie being Robin, and he had made it sound important, so -

"She was tryin to be a hero," Crystal stumbled out. "Wanted to be the opposite of you," she sniped mercilessly at her pathetic husband, who had tears leaking out of eyes that were getting redder and redder.

"Why the hell would Stephie try to go up against Black Mask?" Arthur wheezed, looking slightly nauseous now.

Good. Maybe he'd throw up all over a guard and get his ass beat.

"Fuck if I know!" Crystal cried, exasperated. "Why did Stephie ever do anything, Arthur? Except to get back at you?"

"No," Arthur mumbled, shaking his head. "No. No, this was not my fault. It wasn't - she's really dead?" Arthur asked, wiping his eyes on his hand and then his nose on the long orange sleeve of his jumpsuit. "You're sure?" he whimpered.

"Fucker askin me if I'm sure," Crystal growled. "I'm a goddamn nurse, Art. I know what a dead body looks like and I sure as hell know what our daughter looks like - better than you do, in fact, for as little as you've ever been around - and yeah, she's stone cold dead," Crystal snapped.

"Fuck," Arthur whispered, sagging in his seat all floppy like Pinocchio when he lost his strings. "Fuck, fuck," Crystal's husband mumbled as he started to shake. "Why - why why -"

"I don't know why!" Crystal screamed at him, good and loud now, which drew the guard over to her again.

"Ma'am," the guard frowned. "This is your last warning. You can't keep it down, then your visit will be over."

"Ok, ok, I'm sorry," Crystal babbled. "My husband's just a piece of shit, you know? I'm sure you gotta know that, you work here," she said appeasingly.

The guard's mouth twitched which Crystal took as an affirmative.

"He makes me so damn mad," Crystal huffed to the guard, gathering steam. "Asking me why our daughter went and got killed like I got some magical answer for him," Crystal pouted. "Like the only answer ain't that he's a no-good father and husband who should've been at home takin care of us the right way instead of making up dogshit clues that Batman don't even care about -"

"Hey!" Arthur snarled from his end of the phone. "I'll have you know -" Cluemaster roared, slamming his hand down on the counter in front of him.

"That's it," Crystal's guard barked when Arthur's guard stalked over beside him, bending down low to yell in his ear. "Say good-bye," the slightly kinder guard added to Crystal with a modicum of mercy for a grieving parent.

"Bye, jackass," Crystal snapped into the phone. "I hope you rot in hell for what you did to our baby!"

"What about Black Mask?" Arthur said in a panic, clutching at the phone as his own guard tried to force him up from his chair. "Where is he?"

Crystal glared at her husband before giving him an evil smirk and shrugging cluelessly.

"I'm ready," Crystal said to the guard, stumbling to her feet and almost tipping her chair over while Arthur's guard dragged him off.

"Don't forget your purse," the guard sighed with an eye roll.

* * *

Later that night, Crystal picked up the number she didn't recognize on her cellphone with a weary "H'lo?"

Prob'ly one of the nurses from the hospital calling to console her again. Everybody from work was being so damn nice to her, donating leave and dropping off cookies and deli platters and her supervisor had managed to work out some kind of shift swap so her unit could show up at either the viewing or the funeral for her and that was really so kind, Crystal was truly overwhelmed by how good and loving some people could be.

It didn't make up for her husband being a lowlife piece of shit who'd dragged her and Stephie through hell, and it sure as hell didn't make up for Stephie being dead, but really, well, it made Crystal so proud to be a nurse. Greatest damn profession in the world with the greatest people in it, she thought to herself, the way they were all gathering around to take care of her. Laura had even managed to nab her some more oxy from the locked supply, plus an actual legitimate scrip for Xanax from one of the less assholey doctors on their shift.

God bless nurses, Crystal thought contentedly as she answered the phone.

"Mrs. Brown?" said a clear, brisk woman's voice that Crystal didn't recognize.

"Yeah?" Crystal said, wiping the cookie crumbs off of her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Ma'am, my name is Mercy Graves. I'm Lex Luthor's personal assistant and I'd like to start by saying how sorry I am, how sorry we all are for the loss of your daughter Stephanie."

"What the hell?" Crystal spluttered. "Don't tell me Lex knew Arty, too," she said in frustration.

"No, ma'am, I'm afraid not," the businessy lady said patiently, "but Mr. Luthor's son Conner just found out today that he's Premarked with Stephanie's best friend, so both families will be coming down to the viewing and funeral."

"Lex's son is Premarked with that little autistic girl?" Crystal said, blinking. "Is that where she's been, up in Metropolis? She hasn't come around lately. You know, I wanted to call her and tell her what happened but I don't even have her phone number."

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

"No, ma'am, Conner is Premarked with Timothy Drake, from Gotham," the lady said. "Tim and his father moved to Metropolis several months ago," what'shername said.

"Timothy Drake?" Crystal said in confusion. "That rich kid? Drake Industries? Stephie didn't know him."

"Are you sure?" the woman said, now sounding confused herself. "I met Tim today and he's absolutely devastated over Stephanie's death. He said they were best friends and my impression was that his father was also aware of the friendship."

Crystal blinked, trying to remember, but… she would have known if Stephie had been friends with a rich boy, right? Sure, there was a lot going on sometimes, between Arthur and her job and her constant exhaustion and stress and Stephie getting knocked up in the midst of it all, but -

"I don't know," Crystal said finally. "If they were friends, I didn't know nothin about it," she said. "Maybe Stephie didn't want to bring him around because of her dad…" she trailed off, wondering how many other things her baby girl had kept secret from her.

Stephie had been Spoiler, for crying out loud - and then Robin! Secretly stashing a rich BFF was probably a piece of cake for her daughter.

"I understand," the woman was saying, sounding kind of sympathetic, but very respectful.

Kind of like her nurse pals. Not blaming her for stupidass Arthur and his shit. That was nice, Crystal thought. Not a bad chick who Lex had working for him.

"Are you a nurse?" Crystal idly asked. "What'd you say your name was?" she added, because for the life of her she couldn't remember.

"My name is Mercy Graves," the woman said again.

Graves. Well that was a hell of a name, wasn't it, Crystal thought sourly. No wonder she'd blocked it out.

"I'm not a nurse, no," Mercy was saying. "I'm Lex Luthor's driver and personal assistant."

"Oh," Crystal mumbled. "So what did you want, then?" she said.

"Mr. Luthor was wondering if you'd like some assistance in paying for the funeral," Mercy said, "and also he'd like to pick you up tomorrow night for the viewing in our limo so you don't have to concern yourself with transportation."

"Oh!" Crystal said, straightening up a little bit now.

Well. That was something. Go Stephie, having friends in high places, and all that, except now her baby girl's friends were in the highest place of all, and how come the angels got her, because it wasn't like the angels needed Stephie. Not like Crystal did.

Goddamn these tears, they just wouldn't stop, Crystal quietly fumed. What was she supposed to be answering? Oh, the limo.

"Yeah, a limo, that would be nice," Crystal said. "Thank you," she added somewhat awkwardly.

"You're most welcome," Mercy said. "And the funeral costs…?" she asked again.

"Oh," Crystal said, rubbing her head. "No, Batman said he was gonna pay for all that."

"Oh!" Mercy said, now the one sounding startled. "I didn't realize -" she paused.

"What?" Crystal said suspiciously.

"I didn't realize Batman was involved," Mercy said hesitantly. "With Spoiler," she added, "or - the situation…" she tried to say delicately.

What had the Bat said? Don't mention Robin, don't mention Robin. Right. Well -

"Uh, Red Hood found her, he found Stephie and killed Black Mask," Crystal said, rubbing her nose, "and I guess he called Batman from the doctor's office where he took Stephie 'cause the Bat's his boss or whatever."

"Oh, I see," Mercy said slowly, still sounding confused, but only because she wasn't from Gotham.

The Bat had his fingers in everything. Every Gothamite knew that. Hell, you could hardly sneeze without the Bat saying gesundheit and offering you a tissue.

"Well, if you have any additional expenses or need additional paid time off from work, or anything at all, Mrs. Brown, Mr. Luthor is more than happy to be a resource," Mercy said. "Tim considered Steph his family, and Mr. Luthor takes care of his family."

"Ok," Crystal said, her mind buzzing a little bit. "Well, thanks. I guess I'll meet you all tomorrow, then?" she said.

"We'll pick you up at five," Mercy said.

Crystal pulled the afghan over her legs when she got off the phone, too tired and numb to even climb the stairs to bed. Fancy Stephie knowing rich little Tim Drake, and now Lex Luthor was coming to call! If only Stephie was still here to meet him, Crystal thought sadly. Her baby girl would've gotten a real kick out of meeting Lex Luthor, Crystal suspected, not to mention riding in a limo.

Stephie might've tried to scrape together some money with a few friends for a limo to her prom next year, if she'd had any friends in a nicer neighborhood where a limo driver would actually consent to pick them up. Maybe they all would have left from the Drake boy's house - hell, maybe Jack Drake owned a limo, for all Crystal knew.

No limos now for her baby girl, though.

Just a hearse.

* * *

Crystal awoke to a loud banging on her front door.

"What the hell?" she grumbled, wiping the drool from her cheek and blearily stumbling to her feet and - whoops, she was a little unsteady there.

Whoa. Room was spinning. She probably shouldn't have mixed the oxy with the Xanax - she was a nurse and yeah, she did know better, but fuck it, Stephie was dead and the less alive inside Crystal could feel, the better.

Well, she could still grope her way to the door. God knows it wasn't somebody she wanted to talk to pounding away like that. Her nurse friends would've called to wake her or left and come back later.

Crystal haphazardly pulled the door open and stared disbelievingly down at one Oswald Cobblepot, his hand halted mid-hammer.

"What the _hell_ are you doin here?" Crystal spat as she slumped against the doorframe for support. "Look, if Arty sent you here to bitch at me -"

"No, no, no," the Penguin said appeasingly, pushing a black bag forward. "Eddie asked me to come by."

"Like that's any better," Crystal sniped. "What are you shovin at me, what? What is this?" she grumbled, refusing to take the bag that Cobblepot was insistently nudging towards her hand.

"Eddie wanted you to have some money for Stephanie's funeral expenses," Oswald said. "He would have brought it himself, but he's a little locked up at the moment."

"The _Riddler_ wanted me to have some money for my daughter's funeral?" Crystal shrieked.

She snatched the bag from Penguin and threw it, hard, into his face. The old bird squawked in protest.

"That hurt!" he complained as he stooped to retrieve the case of money.

"Good!" Crystal screamed, kicking the bag away from Oswald onto the narrow dirt strip posing as her front lawn. "I oughtta kill everyone one of ya, getting Arthur involved in your stupid-ass shit and getting my daughter killed!" she screeched, kicking Cobblepot's shins now.

"Ouch!" he yelped, scooting away from Crystal and hurrying to reclaim his money. "We're only trying to help!" Cobblepot protested right before Crystal's keys hit him square in the back of his head, making his black top hat fall off as he jerked in surprise and let out another aggrieved croak.

Oswald hesitated, trying to decide whether to pick up his hat or the money first, realizing belatedly that pausing was a tactical error as a shrilly furious Crystal descended on him, kicking him in the knee before scooping her house keys up and clocking the Penguin square in the face, keys first.

Cobblepot screamed, genuinely hurt this time, so Crystal took advantage of the fact that his hands were covering his bleeding face and kicked him in the stomach. The Penguin's goons, however, had exited their boss's car when Crystal had gone in on Penguin with the keys, and the grieving nurse found herself suddenly surrounded by snarling henchman.

"Get offa me!" Crystal spat, shaking and trying to shrug off the strong hands that were gripping her arms tight.

"You want we should take her down to the Iceberg, boss?" the chief goon asked the Penguin.

The old crone was wheezing and glaring at her, and despite her stomach full of drugs, Crystal suddenly felt a little nervous, until an idea hit her like a line of coke.

"Yeah, take me down to the Iceberg Lounge," Crystal sniffed in haughty disdain. "I'm sure Lex won't mind takin over one more business after he kills all of yous for putting your hands on me. Hell, maybe he'll even make me general manager," Crystal smirked at the sinister circle of angry villains that had her tightly pinned.

Oswald let down his blood-soaked handkerchief and stared at Crystal, narrowing his eyes.

"Why the hell would Lex Luthor care about _you_?" he hissed. "Your husband was nothing but a fourth-rate nobody who couldn't even manage to teach his drugged out wife to be appreciative of the generosity bestowed upon them by her betters."

"Eddie always was too good to your entire pathetic family," the Penguin continued to rant. "I told him not to bother helping you out with some cash, but would he listen to me? No, he would not. Insisted I come over here with my own resources - _my_ money, mind you! - to help poor Cluemaster's wife out of a jam, and you have the gall to maul me like a wildcat!"

"I ain't mauled you half of what Lex is gonna do if you don't get your motherfuckin asses outta here right now and leave me the fuck alone," Crystal said with sinister glee. "Me and Mercy Graves just had the bestest phone conversation ever," she went on, smiling spitefully, "and it turns out that Lex thinks of me as family. Imagine that!" Crystal sang. "Little old me, Lex Luthor's _family_ ," she stressed, tightening her smile.

"Bitch is lying," one of the goons said. "Let's take her in, Penguin."

But Oswald was looking at Crystal apprehensively.

"Leave her," Cobblepot finally snapped. "Let's go."

"But Penguin -" the chief henchman cried.

"I said, leave her!" the Penguin retorted. "I'm not getting involved in Lex's games."

"Ain't a game," Crystal said sweetly as the goons reluctantly let go of their deathgrip on her arms and followed Penguin to the car.

"What the hell, boss?" his chief henchman muttered as he opened the car door for Cobblepot.

"Arthur never even met Lex," the Penguin murmured back, glancing over his shoulder at Crystal, "so he sure as hell wouldn't have told his dumbass wife the name of Lex's bodyguard," he added. "I don't know what Lex is playing at, but we're sitting this hand out," Cobblepot said, taking his top hat off to get into the car.

"Joey, go grab the money bag," he barked, sending one of his goons scuttling.

From her doorstep, Crystal watched with a smug look of triumph until the Penguin's car sped away, despite the anxiety tumbling around in her stomach. Fuck, she'd almost really bit it, huh? Goddamn Arthur and his no-good friends. They had no business coming around to rile her up, and then they're gonna kill a grieving mother for what? Being a little touchy? Sheesh. Assholes, the whole lot of them.

Lex, though, he seemed like a decent guy. Offering her money, giving her a limo ride, scaring off Pengy's goons, and best of all, not friends with her schmuck of a husband. Yeah, Crystal was gonna enjoy her newfound relation, that was for sure. Friends in high places, baby girl, she thought bittersweetly, you did all right, Stephie. Until she didn't, that was.

Crystal sighed and fiddled around on her phone to find the number she wanted, absent-mindedly wiping away some more tears.

"Hello, Mercy? It's Crystal Brown again," she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are love and motivation and inspiration and my supercommenters are ANGELS, I love you guys!! 
> 
> Oh, btw, it shouldn't need to be said, but fictional character's POV and language are NOT necessarily the author's - fictional characters have flaws and their language reflects that. I shouldn't need to spell this out, but I am in case someone needs an education on how fiction works. So when Crystal calls Cass the little autistic girl, you as a reader should engage your critical thinking skills if needed and say hm, what does that language and that word choice tell you about Crystal? NOT "what does it mean about River9Noble *gasp*" Shouldn't need to be said but wow did I read a fic last night where some commenters were going AFTER a new to the Batfandom writer trying to police their writing because it didn't meet whatever purity standard they had decreed All Fiction Must Meet No Matter The Author's Intent so I feel a little salty today and am offering some free education about what fiction is - and is NOT - and how to interpret literature - for those who might need the note. Hopefully that's none of you, but if it is, you're welcome. 
> 
> You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble. This story updates randomly but actively.
> 
> Please check out my other fics! Tons of Batman. A lot less salt ;)


	13. Don't Believe Everything You Read

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're keeping track of the timeline - Steph died on Sunday night. 
> 
> Bruce calls Tim Monday afternoon and then Tim and Conner find out they're soulmates, ending with Tim sleeping over at Conner's; Crystal's drama in Ch. 13 also happens all throughout Monday, and Cass confronts Bruce Monday night and then meets Jason. 
> 
> On Tuesday Bruce calls Dick about Steph's death and then Dick calls Jason, who drags Slade into the phone call. This chapter takes place Tuesday morning, back in Metropolis.

_Tuesday morning_

"Hey, Dad! What should we wear for our interview?" Conner called out from his and Tim's bedroom. "Please don't say our school uniforms," Conner moaned as Lex approached from the open living room.

Lex smirked at his son.

"I don't think we need to advertise your plethora of uniform violations to the world, Conner," Lex said with an easy wink for Tim, who giggled in response.

Conner was right. Lex was surprisingly cool, Tim thought to himself, although a now-recurrent pang of guilt and anxiety followed his inner admission.

"Something posh," Lex mused, as he stood in front of Conner's ridiculously overstuffed closet, "but with personality. Show your uniqueness off," Lex smiled, affectionately cuffing the back of his son's neck rather than ruffling his hair, since Conner's black locks hair were once again gelled to lofty heights.

"None of my nicer clothes have personality," Tim said in a worried voice. "I usually wear hoodies and jeans when I'm not at school," he admitted.

"He was a skater boy," Conner hummed with a sexy grin before wrapping his arms around Tim's waist from behind and kissing his cheek. "Can I dress you up, Timmy?" he begged. "I'll make you look really cute. Not that you don't always look cute, but, you know," Conner grinned at him.

"Sure," Tim said with a pleased smile, realizing that the warmth in his cheeks wasn't even from embarrassment this time but happiness.

Tim squeezed his hands over Conner's and leaned back against his soulmate's chest, letting himself be cuddled and trying to soothe his mind from the oddity of waking up in Lex Luthor's home, in bed with his very own soulmate who only happened to be the hottest boy in the world, thank you very much, with the additional benefit of being a clingy sleeper.

Waking up wrapped in a Conner burrito had been amazing and Tim had actually had a few moments of easy breathing before painfully gasping when he remembered that Steph was dead - _deadeadeadeadshewasdeadwhyhadn'tBrucewherewasBrucewhy -_ but Conner had been right there to soothe Tim when every lungful of air hurt and turned to sobs.

When was he going to stop crying? All he did was cry and Tim had thought that he'd cried so many tears when his mom had died that his reservoir had surely run dry, but here they'd come, rolling down his cheeks fresh like the morning dew and twice as plentiful.

It sucked. A lot. And if Tim hadn't had Conner to hold onto, he wasn't quite sure how he would have coped.

"You have skinny pants, right?" Conner said in Tim's ear. "Didn't we pack some yesterday?"

"Yeah," Tim said. "I only brought the black pair, though."

"I can work with that," Conner beamed.

Tim gaped at himself in Conner's bedroom mirror when his style transformation was complete.

"Wow," he breathed out.

"Right?" Conner hummed in his ear.

"Babe," Tim said in awe, taking in his black, green, and blue plaid blazer, only the slightest bit loose since Conner wore them snug, and helped out by the fact that Conner had layered it over a royal blue v-neck sweater that matched Tim's eyes, along with a barely-there blue pinstriped white button-down adorned with a bright orange patterned tie that looked straight out of the seventies.

Conner squealed and hugged Tim tight around the waist, picking him and spinning him around surprisingly easily before setting him back down again.

"What?" Tim said with a smile when he was back on solid ground, turning around in Conner's arms with his eyes sparkling up into his boyfriend's.

"You called me babe for the first time," Conner beamed at him. "I like it, too," he declared.

"Oh," Tim said, a wider smile creeping onto his face. "I'll do it more," he said, stretching his arms up and around Conner's neck and leaning in for a sweet kiss before nuzzling his face on Conner's blazer.

"Your jacket is awesome," Tim said as one of Conner's hands strayed up to scritch the hair on the back of Tim's head that had escaped the gel-induced artful swoop on his forehead that Conner had carefully styled and that Tim's cuddling had no hope of dislodging.

"I'm definitely gonna start wearing velvet more, snugglebug," Conner said in a deeper voice that gave Tim the most delightful tingles in the most delightful places.

Tim giggled and buried his face deeper into Conner's chest, sighing contentedly as his boyfriend rocked him gently back and forth, an arm looped around his waist, with fingers straying to gently trace Tim's soulspot over his clothes.

"You ready?" Conner asked when Lex knocked on their door.

Tim took a deep breath, willing himself not to suddenly vomit.

"I got you, babe," Conner said with concern. "And my dad won't let Cat print anything stupid-sounding, even if something comes out wrong when you first say it."

"Ok," Tim said nervously, blinking rapidly as he reluctantly left Conner's embrace.

Conner immediately threaded their fingers together and squeezed Tim's hand tight before leading them out of their bedroom to a waiting Lex.

"Cat and her photographer are set up in the living room," Lex said in a low voice. "If there's any question you're not sure about, or concerned about your answer to, boys, just give me a look and I'll step in," he added.

"Is my dad here?" Tim asked, looking around for Jack.

Lex's eye twitched.

"It seems your father had an unfortunate incident with a mugger last night, Tim," Lex said in an even voice without a trace of sarcasm. "His black eye is a bit too bad to cover with make-up, so Allison is going to photoshop some old stock of him into the pictures."

"Does this mean he's not coming to the funeral?" Conner asked his father hopefully, stealing a glance at Tim, whose cheeks were slightly red.

"Yes," Lex said, his eyebrows now going slightly into the air. "I'm surprised your father didn't communicate that with you, Tim," he said with a frown.

"I'm not," Tim muttered.

He'd checked his phone that morning, of course. Twelve dozen times, in fact, not counting the times he'd obsessively checked it last night before going to bed. If only he'd read Steph's text. If only -

But Lex's hands were on his and Conner's backs, gently leading them to the living room where _The Daily Planet_ waited.

* * *

Allison the photographer had been delighted with both Tim and Conner's outfits and had artfully posed them for several couples' shots, plus some with Lex, before departing with apologies for another job.

Although Tim had been nervous about Cat Grant's interview, he'd been greatly relieved when Conner took the lead at the beginning, answering Cat's surprisingly fun questions about being Premarked with ease and setting Tim up to simply chime in with agreement on most of his responses.

Tim found himself marveling at Conner's PR skills, in fact, as Conner regaled Cat with a hilariously exaggerated account of poor Ms. Won discovering them cuddling on the grass at school before playing up Jack Drake's approval of him as Tim's soulmate with nary a word about Jack's initially chilly reaction.

When Cat asked Tim directly how he felt about having Lex Luthor as his new father-in-law, Tim didn't even have to pretend to smile as he looked over into Lex's kind eyes.

"Lex is amazing," Tim said with more honesty than he wished for, prompting a warm answering smile to crease Lex's face.

"He, um," and suddenly Tim's throat was tight and he was swallowing hard and screwing his eyes shut for a minute. "Lex has been really supportive about Steph dying," Tim managed to get out in a quiet voice, willing himself not to think of his own father's apathetic-bordering-on-irritated reaction to his best friend's gruesome death.

Cat's face took on a sympathetic cast.

"Can we transition now to talking about Steph, if that's ok, Tim?" Cat asked gently.

Tim sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve before Conner passed him a box of tissues.

"Sure," Tim said hollowly as Conner's arm wrapped tight around his waist.

"If you need to take a break anytime, or don't want to answer a particular question, you just let me know," Cat said, and Tim nodded.

"From what Lex has told me, your friend Steph seems like a truly remarkable young woman," Cat said with an encouraging smile. "How did you two meet?" Cat asked.

"She was out as Spoiler one winter a few years ago and I slipped on some ice and fell," Tim lied easily, "so Steph came down from the fire escape she was on to make sure I was all right."

"So Steph cared about the community as well as about her quest to help her father get the psychiatric treatment that he needed for his criminal addictions," Cat said smoothly.

"Yes," Tim said slowly, glancing at Lex, who was giving Cat a little nod of approval.

Cat's eyes may have sparkled the tiniest bit back at Lex before she asked her next question.

"And even after her father was committed to Arkham Asylum, Steph continued to support her city as Spoiler, isn't that right?" Cat said.

"Yes," Tim said. "I don't know everything she did," he said with a bashful smile, "but she patrolled Gotham as much as the Bats, I think. Steph's focus was more on helping people out, though, instead of fighting crime."

Which was total bullshit, but whatever. Hopefully Steph would be laughing about it in Heaven, Tim thought despondently.

"Even more despicable what Black Mask did to her, then," Cat murmured, though, looking sincerely troubled at the thought.

Lex grunted in agreement. Tim nodded instead of answering, glancing down at the tissue in his lap as Conner's arm squeezed him a little tighter.

"I have no idea what Black Mask wanted with Steph," Tim said in a low voice.

"Black Mask apparently had quite the crime syndicate, from what I was able to dig up in my research," Cat said regretfully. "Steph could have done something as simple as try to help a child or a sex worker who was caught in his web. We'll never know," Cat said softly, "but we do know that she was a hero and an inspiration to her community."

"Did they catch Black Mask?" Tim asked, suddenly realizing that he didn't know oh so much about what had actually happened to his friend.

Shit. Maybe he should've listened harder to Bruce, but - fuck, he was going to have to call him, wasn't he? He did want to talk to his former mentor, he did - but Tim feared the answers that the Bat might give to his multitude of questions, because there weren't going to be any good ones, were there? Steph was dead - she was dead and she wasn't coming back and whatever Bruce had or hadn't done, it was too late.

Besides, Bruce had fired her. _Fired_ her, fired Steph as Robin barely two months after taking her on. Hadn't he known how much that would hurt her? Why the hell wouldn't he give Steph the same chance that he'd given Tim? Or Jason, or Dick? Steph had more passion and determination than anyone Tim knew, and she loved Gotham with a ferocity that Tim couldn't understand.

If anybody was cut out to be Robin, it was Steph, who'd become her own superhero without any backup, without any training, with nothing but guts and grit. Why, then? Why, why, why?

The nausea swirling in Tim's stomach was threatening to make him bolt to the bathroom, but it was quickly forgotten when Lex said, "Black Mask is dead. Red Hood apparently killed him."

"What?" Tim breathed out, his eyes going wide, and filling with yes, dammit, tears of relief.

God bless Jason. Tim didn't care what Bruce said. Fuck Bruce. Jason killed Black Mask? Hallelujah, Tim thought fiercely as his chest filled with both guilt and a rush of empathy for Jason's neverending rage and bitterness towards Bruce at the Joker's continued existence.

So this is how that felt on the other side of the coin. Oh.

Tim got why Bruce couldn't kill the Joker - he really did, but - fuck, somebody should kill him for Jason. It wasn't right. Even if - oh - Lex was saying something again.

"I'm sorry, what?" Tim said, trying to refocus his eyes on Lex, who gave him an understanding smile.

"Mercy spoke to Steph's mother last night," Lex gently repeated. "Mrs. Brown said that Red Hood found Steph -" he delicately did not say 'being tortured,' but Tim's mind filled the words in anyway - "and Red Hood apparently had to kill Black Mask in order to rescue Spoiler."

There was undoubtedly no 'had to' about it, Tim thought with vindictive glee, but Lex was going on.

"Red Hood rushed Steph to a doctor, but -" and here Lex pressed his lips together firmly, resting his eyes on Conner, instead of Tim, with a deep look of... sympathy? Sorrow? Apology? Tim couldn't be sure what Lex was trying to convey to his son, but Conner shifted uncomfortably in his seat next to Tim as if he understood and shared the sentiment.

Huh. What was that about? Tim wasn't quite sure how he could bring it up to Conner, though, when he had his own secrets, which - oh, fuck, he'd promised to tell Conner about today and - oh, everyone was looking at Tim now, waiting for an answer. What was he supposed to be responding to? Oh, yeah. Black Mask. Dead. Go Jason. Um...

"Black Mask is dead," Tim parroted back to Lex very coherently. "Well."

He paused, not quite sure what he could say that wouldn't look utterly atrocious in print.

Cat saved the situation by gracefully changing subjects, saying, "Perhaps I could ask a few questions about Steph's pregnancy to round out my article, if that's all right, Tim?"

"Sure," Tim said with relief. "Of course."

"Now, I know society frowns upon non-soulbonded sexual relations, most especially at a young age," Cat said, "but maybe you can give me some insight into why Steph decided to have sex?"

"Oh," Tim said, scowling. "She was statutory raped."

Cat and Lex's eyebrows both went up and even Conner jumped a little bit in surprise.

"I mean," Tim said, "Steph told me she'd wanted it and it was her choice. But Dean was twenty and she was fifteen."

"Oh, my God," Cat said, looking absolutely horrified.

The reporter glanced over at Lex, whose eyes had narrowed into something slightly malevolent.

"Appalling," Lex spat. "An adult taking advantage of a young teenager like that?"

"Right?" said Tim. "And it happened not long after the big earthquake hit Gotham. All the bridges were closed and the city was totally cut off and Steph had gone into a thrift store one day to try to find - I don't even know what," he said, "and that's where she met Dean and he just totally manipulated her," Tim said.

He was about to launch into the tale of Steph's prior kidnapping that had, in Tim's opinion, rendered her even more emotionally vulnerable, but Tim suddenly realized that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to piss Crystal off by advertising that she hadn't known that her own daughter was missing.

Crystal was… well - um -

"Was Steph's baby daddy - Dean?" Cat said, drawing Tim's attention back to the interview, "was he supportive at all during her pregnancy?"

"Oh, hell no," Tim scoffed. "He was still living with his parents - because of course he was," Tim snarked, "and his family had left Gotham as soon as the bridges reopened. Steph didn't even tell him she was pregnant, thank God," Tim said.

"Wow," Cat said, giving Lex a wide-eyed look. "Well. That was very brave of Steph to carry the baby to term and incredibly self-sacrificing of her to give it up for adoption afterwards. I'm sure a lot of people judged her for her pregnancy."

"Oh, yeah, pretty much everyone," Tim said. "And her family life was shit - oops," he said, blushing before correcting himself - "I mean, Steph's family life was _bad_ before that, because her dad Cluemaster was pretty abusive -"

"- don't print that," Lex murmured to Cat, who gave him a tiny nod -

"- but yeah, Steph's life got much worse after that, because everyone was really mean to her parents about it, like it was their fault somehow, and -"

"- I think Cat gets the picture," Lex intervened, with a slight head shake to Tim, who bit his lip abruptly and shut up.

"Yes, I have plenty for my article," Cat quickly agreed with a big smile for Lex. "I'll be able to paint a very nice portrait of the brave, passionate, and selfless young woman that Steph clearly was."

"Thank you," Tim said softly while Lex beamed approvingly at the reporter and reached out to squeeze her hand in thanks, which - was Cat blushing? Oh, come on, really?

Conner's chest was silently shaking against Tim as Lex helped Cat to her feet and wrapped her arm in his to escort her out after she shook hands with the boys, who had also stood to say good-bye.

As soon as Conner heard the door shut behind the reporter, he dissolved into full on giggles.

"Oh, my God," Conner wheezed, laying his head down on Tim's shoulder and hugging him tight as he laughed. "I should be used to it by now, but that is never going to be comfortable to watch."

"Ha ha," Lex gently snarked with a grin as he rejoined the boys in the living room. "Laugh all you want, but wait and see what a beautifully complimentary article we get written for us tonight."

"Oh, I don't deny it works," Conner grinned back at his dad as he sat up and wiped his eyes. "It's just gross."

Tim giggled a little bit, too, when he saw the twinkle in Lex's eye. Lex smiled at him and shrugged.

"An advantage to being single," he said playfully.

"You don't have a soulmate, I guess?" Tim asked Lex curiously.

Lex paused.

"No," he said, and something in his voice told Tim not to ask anymore questions.

Lex was asking a question of his own, though.

"What's Dean's last name?" he said, piercing Tim with a sharp look that made the boy's mouth go dry.

Oh, shit.

That - that was a Lex Luthor, Super-Villain™ patented look of Sinister Intent.

Was that a problem? Tim suddenly wondered. Dean wasn't just an asshole, he was technically a rapist - actually, no technically about it, he _was_ a rapist - and - but - was it ok to let Lex kill Dean? _Was_ Lex going to kill him? Maybe Dean was still preying on other girls, though. And Tim obviously had to pretend that he didn't know what Lex was up to, because Tim had to protect his former-Robin identity, after all, and maybe what Lex did that Tim technically didn't know about didn't have to bother him. Maybe -

Lex was patiently waiting for Tim's answer.

"Umm…" Tim said, looking up into the ceiling and pretending to wrack his memory banks in order to buy time.

Tim was super glad that Jason had killed Black Mask, right? So maybe it wasn't so bad to just -

"Anderson," Tim said, feeling his stomach bottom out as soon as he spoke.

Lex nodded without a word and Tim got chills.

"Dad, what are you going to do?" Conner said, frowning.

Tim turned his head to his soulmate, who was looking suspiciously at his father.

"Who says I'm going to do anything?" Lex said innocently.

"Daaad," Conner said warningly.

Shit, did Conner know about his dad? Like, knowknow, know super-villain status know? Or did Conner only think that Lex was going to do something mean? Like get Dean fired (if Dean had even bothered to get a job yet)? Shit, Tim thought to himself, anxiety beginning to season the massive guilt swirling around in his intestines.

"Conner," Lex said firmly, "as previously discussed, multiple times, there are some facets of my life that you're better off not knowing about."

Conner scowled. Lex flicked his eyes over to Tim, who suddenly felt like a deer in the headlights.

"There's no problem, Tim," Lex said authoritatively.

"Ok," Tim half-whispered, not moving a muscle except his lips.

"Go grab your suitcases, boys," Lex said, standing up. "I want to get on the road so we miss rush hour."

"Where are we staying?" Tim asked Lex, wondering if he had booked them a hotel. Crap, that would make it a lot harder to sneak out to see Bruce, if so.

"Your father invited us to stay at your house, Tim," Lex said, smiling warmly, as if he hadn't just been plotting a murder. "Jack sent a spare set of keys over this morning in case you didn't have yours."

"I do have mine," Tim said, "but that's good you have a set now, too," he said.

Lex patted a friendly hand to Tim's shoulder before squeezing his arm around the still-frowning Conner's shoulders and planting a kiss on his son's cheek.

"Don't worry so much," Lex gently scolded his son. "It's my job to handle problems."

Conner sighed. Lex smilingly cupped Conner's cheek and kissed his forehead before heading off to his own bedroom to collect his belongings.

"What was all that about?" Tim whispered to Conner as they went hand-in-hand to their own room.

Not that Tim didn't damn well have more than just a clue as to what it was about, but…

"Let's talk about it later," Conner muttered back. "Tonight?" he asked Tim, looking into his boyfriend's eyes anxiously. "You were gonna tell me about your stuff tonight, too, right?" Conner said, and for the first time, Tim saw nervous doubt in his soulmate's eyes.

"Yeah," Tim said, swallowing down his own worry.

Conner was clearly upset with Lex, no matter how much he knew or didn't know about the depths of his father's villainy. That had to be a good thing, right?

Tim pulled Conner into a hug.

"It'll be ok, babe," Tim said with absolutely no conviction that it would be.

But Conner was hugging him back, and even snuggling into him, and Conner's breathing was evening out, and, well, he was Tim's soulmate, right? They'd figure it out. One way or another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are love and thanks so much to those who've been commenting so much!! I LOVE YOU GUYS and you make me want to work on this story soooo often! 
> 
> Next chapter, we'll be back with in Gotham with Jason and Cass, as well as Slade and Dick. Worlds are about to collide. 
> 
> You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble - come say hi! And do check out my other stories! lots of rarepairs and Jason and romantic JaySteph, as well as a few other ongoing longfics.


	14. Two Brothers, A Bitch, and A Badass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW - Indirect references to Dick's rape by Tarantula and its after-effects. 
> 
> If you're keeping track of the timeline - Steph died on Sunday night.
> 
> Bruce calls Tim Monday afternoon and then Tim and Conner find out they're soulmates, ending with Tim sleeping over at Conner's; Crystal's drama in Ch. 13 also happens all throughout Monday, and Cass confronts Bruce Monday night and then meets Jason.
> 
> On Tuesday Bruce calls Dick about Steph's death and then Dick calls Jason, who drags Slade into the phone call. Tim and Kon's interview took place on Tuesday morning, and this chapter takes place late Tuesday afternoon.

"Shit!" Jason yelped when Cass abruptly jerked upright and flung a knife through the air from where her head had been cozily resting on his shoulder while they watched PBS together, curled up under a blanket on his couch.

Across the room, the blade stopped inches from Slade's remaining scowling eye, the handle gripped in his fist.

"Cassandra Cain," Slade said dryly. "If I'd have known you were here, I would've come in with my swords out."

"Or you could have just knocked like a normal person," Jason groused as he got up from the couch to greet his older brother, who had emerged from the stairwell just behind Deathstroke but was lurking uncomfortably in the shadows.

"Boy, knocking on the front door is for the inept and the weak, and I am neither," Slade boasted, flicking his eyes around the room to assess for further danger. "What's Cain doing here?" he demanded.

"Cass," the girl corrected with a glare.

"Or Black Bat," Jason added, reaching back to offer her a hand to tug her off the couch.

A hand which he did not let go of as he led her over to meet Dick, a fact which Jason saw Slade track with an amused eyebrow tilt.

"She's Steph's best friend," Jason said. "Hey Dickiebird," he said softly as he approached his brother, who was still hanging back behind Slade, and was it Jason's imagination, or was Slade subtly angling his body in front of Dick? Huh. That was weird.

"Hey Jason," Dick said before swallowing and shifting on his feet, eyeing Cass.

"This is Cass," Jason said. "My friend, too," he added. "This is my brother, Dick," he said, looking down at the girl who was in no way, shape, or form in the friendzone. "He only lives up to his name half of the time," Jason added with a grin.

Slade snorted.

"We talking about the same Dick?" he said, turning his head to smirk at the younger man. "'Cause I'm gonna say he lives up to his name a full one hundred and ten percent of the time," Slade teased.

"That's because you're an asshole," Dick snarked right back, relaxing the slightest bit. "You get special treatment."

Something undefined flared in Slade's eyes, but before he could say what was on his mind, Dick cleared his throat and finally met Cass's eyes.

"Hi, Cass," he said, but didn't offer a hand.

"Hi," she said back, tipping her head to the side as she regarded Dick and Slade.

And while Jason was not yet an expert on Cass's body language (a failing he was diligently applying himself to remedying), that was definitely amusement in her eyes. Although why it was there, Jason could not explain.

"Well, come on in and sit down, anyway," Jason said into the silence.

Slade narrowed his eyes and gave Cass a look as he made his way past her, and her eyes were flat-out laughing at him, now, as she turned and went back to the couch, leaving Jason alone in front of a hesitant Dick.

"Hey, Big Wing," Jason said gently, stepping forward, but only slightly. "Is a hug ok?"

Dick blinked and teared up.

"Yeah," he said thickly, moving forward to meet Jason. "A hug is good," he said, reaching out and wrapping his arms surprisingly tight around Jason's middle, and sniffing into his shoulder when his younger but much bigger brother engulfed him in a bear hug.

"I'm so sorry," Jason whispered into Dick's ear, despite the overwhelming inadequacy of the phrase.

"I love you," Dick mumbled back. "I'm sorry I left," he said. "And I'm so sorry about Steph, I should've been here, I should've -"

"Hey, no," Jason said firmly. "You stop right there, Dickiebird," he said. "This was one hundred percent Pops's fault and zero percent yours," he said. "Hell, maybe it's part mine for letting that asshole Sionis live as long as I did," Jason sighed. "He had his uses, but…" Jason felt his throat get tight.

Dick squeezed him a little tighter, and Jason closed his eyes and hugged back.

"Anyway," Jason said after a long second, "you got nothin' to apologize for about leaving. You did what you had to do, ok?"

"Ok," Dick mumbled back, although his face said that it was very much not ok.

Jason let it go, though, and walked Dick over to the seating area where Cass had scooted down to the far end of the couch so that Jason could sit in between her and the already seated Slade, leaving Dick the armchair at Slade's elbow - which meant that Cass was positioned as far away from Dick as possible, Jason noted, and he more than suspected that it was deliberate.

See, this is why he liked her, he thought to himself. Cass was sweet _and_ observant. And badass. An excellent combination, Jason hummed to himself as he plopped down next to his crush and squeezed her knee, earning himself a warm smile back.

"Have you talked to Tim yet?" Dick asked Jason as he sat, curling his legs up onto the chair and into his chest before wrapping his arms around them. "He must be devastated," Dick said.

"I'm gonna go see him later tonight," Jason said. "With you, if you want," he added. "He's been up in Metropolis, y'know."

"I didn't know," Dick said in surprise, looking guilty again. "I didn't even know Bruce had made Steph Robin."

He rubbed his nose on his sleeve and looked glum until he looked over at Slade, and saw something in his eye that made him relax fractionally.

"Yeah, so, Timmy's dad found out he was Robin," Jason said. "Threatened to kill Bruce."

"Oh, shit," Dick said in horror, but Cass was snorting in laughter, and Jason grinned down at her.

"Yeah, you got another member for your Kill Bruce Club," he teased her.

Slade slid his gaze over to Cass as his lips twitched.

"Did you do it, or is he still breathing?" the mercenary asked her curiously, causing Cass's face to twist into a scowl.

"Ran," she spat derisively, making Jason laugh.

"Fucker jumped off the roof to get away from her," he giggled, wiping his eyes. "Cass is a badass," he said.

"No shit," said Slade. "I don't offer apprenticeships to just anybody," he said, sliding his good eye back over to Dick with a smirk, who rolled his eyes, but with a tiny smile that Jason might dare to call fond. Hm.

Cass made a rude noise with her mouth at Slade, though, causing the assassin to chuckle. Dick looked at Cass tentatively before giving her a small smile, which Cass returned very gently, Jason noticed.

"So, what's the plan, Hood?" Deathstroke asked as he stretched his long legs out and propped them up on Jason's coffee table.

"Rude!" Jason said, kicking them off, making Dick unexpectedly giggle. "Do I come into your house and put my feet all over your shit?" Jason snarked at Slade.

"Boy, you couldn't find my house if you wanted to, and even if you did, you sure as hell couldn't break in," Slade told him.

"Bullshit," Jason said, rattling off an address and a string of keycodes without batting an eye.

Beside him, Slade froze in place and gave him a glacial glare. Cass growled low in her throat and Jason felt her hand sneak in between the couch cushions for one of the weapons stashed there.

"Slade," Dick said warningly, suddenly looking very concerned.

"You want to tell me how the hell you found that out?" Slade said in a low, taut voice to Jason.

"Nope," Jason said calmly, leaning back unconcernedly against the back of his couch.

"Boy -" Slade started to say, drawing an arm back that Dick caught softly in both of his hands, giving the merc a pleading look. "Robin, you do not want me to stand here with my security compromised and not kick this brat's ass," Slade warned Dick, but despite his surly tone, Cass suddenly relaxed beside Jason.

"Ok," she mouthed to him.

Jason raised his eyebrows and turned back to watch Dick and Slade's negotiation.

"I'm sure Jason had a good reason for finding out your home info," Dick said appeasingly to Deathstroke. "Right, Jason?" he said.

"Damn straight I did," Jason said. "You think I'm gonna let you travel around with my brother and not have a contingency plan to fry your ass if you hurt Dick?"

Slade swiveled his head to look at Jason.

"I don't break contracts," he said, but even Jason could see that his expression had gentled, and possibly even had a modicum of respect.

Jason shrugged.

"And I don't take chances with my brother," he said. "Even if you two are BFF's or frenemies or whatever the fuck you are."

"Boyfriends," Dick said softly, but distractedly, because his eyes were big and he was staring at Jason almost like he didn't know him. "You care about me that much, Little Wing?" he said, looking a little teary-eyed.

"You're _boyfriends?_ " Jason shrieked, ignoring Dick's question as his jaw dropped wide open before he snapped it shut in an angry stare that was directed solely at Slade, who didn't even notice Jason because his own face had gone soft and was focused on Dick.

Dick, however, looked distraught.

"Little Wing, please don't be upset," Dick begged him. "I know I always said I wanted my soulmate, but -"

"I'm not upset about you dating Slade!" Jason huffed. "I'm mad because this fucker's been _taking my money_ for a whole damn YEAR to keep you safe, and the whole time Dickie was your _boyfriend?_ " he screamed at the assassin. "You scamming sonofabitch!" Jason yelled, tugging on his hair.

Beside him, Cass started to quietly giggle. Slade smirked at Jason and shrugged.

"Could've done better homework," he said. "Because apparently you're more than capable of finding out shit you're not supposed to know."

"You BITCH!" Jason yelled, picking up a pillow and throwing it right into Slade's face, who didn't even bother to block it. "You little cheating, lying -"

"Little Wing!" Dick interjected. "Please! Can we not?" he said, looking a little pained.

Jason abruptly caught his breath and shut up.

"Ok, fine," he grumbled. "Only for you, Dickie," he said. "But you damn well better have been spending that money I've been paying you on Dick," he snapped at Slade.

"Of course I was," Slade said easily. "Five star hotels, first class flights, Michelin star restaurants, designer clothes…"

"Oh," Dick said, looking surprised. "But don't you normally live like that?"

Slade shrugged.

"I do," he said. "But I normally take more jobs than I did this past year."

And yeah, Jason had to look away for a minute, because Dick's eyes were getting wet and he was whispering up to Slade about how he didn't have to do that for him and Slade was murmuring something back that sounded soothing, and, well, geez.

It was sweet, ok? And Dickie seemed happy. But his soulmate - he'd been so dead set on waiting for them for so long, and -

"He didn't take advantage of you, did he?" Jason suddenly growled to Dick. "Because of what happened?"

"No!" Dick said. "No, Jason -" he hesitated. "I always wanted Slade to be my soulmate. I was sure he would be," Dick said, and then he was blinking hard. "I was heartbroken when he wasn't," Dick admitted, and then Slade's hand was reaching out to grip Dick's, and Dick was wiping his eyes with his free hand and smiling bashfully at Jason.

"I was still planning to be with my soulmate," he said, "but my feelings for Slade wouldn't go away, and then - well -" he paused and looked at Cass.

"I didn't tell her," Jason said.

"Oh," Dick said uncomfortably. "Um. You can. I just -"

"I know," Cass said gently. "See," she said, motioning from her eyes to Dick, waving her hand in an airy circle to encompass him.

"Cain here -"

" _Cass_ ," Jason interrupted Slade, slugging him hard in the arm. "Don't be an asshole."

Slade rolled his eye, but he said, " _Cass_ then, she reads body language better than anyone I've ever met, little bird," and Dick blinked and relaxed.

"Oh, ok," Dick said. "That makes it easier, then. Well. Yeah. After Catalina…" he trailed off for a long minute before taking a deep breath. "Slade ended up running into me -"

"Wait, before I hired you?" Jason said, his voice getting high-pitched and angry again as Slade smirked and Dick nodded.

Jason groaned in frustration and took the pillow that Cass handed him, beating Slade viciously with it while the older man half-heartedly blocked with one hand, chuckling with glee.

"Could've done your research, boy," Slade snickered before finally yanking the pillow out of Jason's hand and tossing it onto the floor. "Let your brother finish talking," he said, giving Jason a look that said to knock his shit off.

Dick's cheeks got a little pink, but he said, "Anyway, Slade was there for me, and I wanted him to be, and... I still feel kind of selfish," he said miserably, "about what I'm doing to my soulmate. But I want to be happy," he said brokenly, wiping the corner of his eye. "And I'm happy with Slade," he finished.

"Good," Jason said wholeheartedly, and Cass nodded beside him.

"Good…?" Dick said in surprise.

"I love you, Dickie," Jason said, "and I wanted to listen to you about soulmates. I really did. And I tried. But, honestly? I don't trust Fate to not screw me over," Jason said. "She hasn't done me any favors so far, and I'd way rather be with someone who I know makes me happy and fits into my life, whether they're my soulmate or not," he said.

And yeah, maybe his eyes slid over to Cass very deliberately as he was talking, and maybe she was smiling.

"Same," she said, meeting Jason's eyes, and maybe he had kind of already guessed that she felt the same, based on the amount of snuggles he'd been getting from her in the last twenty-four hours, but damn, did it feel good to hear her say it.

"Those are the first sensible words I've ever heard come out of your mouth, Hood," Slade commented to Jason.

"Bitch, I'm still mad at you," Jason snarked right back.

"And yet we still have an open contract between us that needs discussion of the details, do we not?" Slade said with a lazy grin. "You keep hiring me a lot for someone who can't stand me."

"I hired you before I knew you were a con artist," Jason grumbled.

"What contract?" Dick said, looking puzzled.

Slade opened his mouth to start explaining, but Jason shot him a panicked look.

"Not here," he hissed.

Slade rolled his eye.

"Yes, here," he said. "You're paying me to make sure Dick doesn't stop you from playing Jesus. That doesn't involve keeping it a secret from him."

"I sure as hell believe it does!" Jason yelped. "Shut up, man!"

"Jason…" Dick said slowly. "Babe…" he said to Slade.

"Your brother here is gonna take the dead chick to the League of Assassins and raise her up in a Lazarus Pit," Slade said calmly to Dick.

"Aaggh!" Jason yelled at him. "What the fuck, asshole?"

"Jason!" Dick yelled back at him. "There's no way in hell you're doing that! That is beyond dangerous! I can't lose you again, Little Wing -"

"Relax, little bird," Slade said soothingly, reaching out to grasp Dick's hand in his again. "I'm gonna go with him to keep him safe."

"What?" Jason and Dick said at the same time, jaws dropping.

Jason scowled at Slade.

"Cass is coming," he said. "We don't need you."

Beside him, Cass nodded sharply. Slade gave them both a snarky eyebrow.

"Beg to differ," he said. "One of you carries the body, leaving only one to fight off ninjas -"

Cass snorted.

"Fight, carry, same," she boasted.

Slade ignored her and went on.

"And from what I hear," he said, looking more significantly at Jason, "your baby Lazarus is going to be full of Pit Rage when she comes up, and you think that all two of you can get her back to your plane unseen and unheard by the League? You need a third," he said decisively. "And that's me."

"But, Slade," Dick said in a lower voice, worry creasing his forehead. "I don't want you to -"

"I'll be fine," Slade said reassuringly. "Your brother might be a dipshit, but he actually knows how to fight," Slade said.

"Uh, thanks?" Jason said sarcastically.

"And Cass is the best there is," Slade said.

"Well, that's true, anyway," Jason mumbled, smiling over at Cass as she crossed her arms and smiled.

"I'll bring them all back home safe," Slade said to Dick. "I promise. And me," he added when Dick started to open his mouth.

Dick chewed on his lip.

"Are you sure you should, though?" he said to Jason. "Bring Steph back, I mean? That's big, Little Wing."

Jason frowned.

"No more dead Robins," he said sharply.

"I get it," Dick said slowly. "I know what losing Steph has got to be doing to you, Jase, but -" Dick swallowed. "The Pit Rage? The lifelong Lazarus effects? Would Steph want that?" Dick said. "That's a lot, to make that decision for her."

"Steph want," Cass said firmly.

"She said so?" Dick asked and Cass shook her head no.

"Strong. Fighter. Love. She want."

"She went too soon, Dick," Jason said. "Way too soon. And it was fucked up how it happened. I'm not leaving her dead. And Cass is right. I only met her once, but Steph was so full of spirit and she cared about everyone she was leaving behind so much, and she had a baby she gave up, who won't ever get the chance to meet her one day, and Tim needs her and Cass needs her and - fuck it, Pops needs her back, too. He's not gonna survive losing her, Dickiebird."

"Cass make sure," the girl muttered under her breath with a vicious smile, making Jason grin.

"Since when do you care so much about Bruce?" Dick asked Jason.

"I care," Jason muttered. "I care that he stops getting kids killed. And you and I both know he's not gonna stop being Batman, and whether it's Tim again or someone else, he's gonna end up with another Robin no matter what you and me and Leslie say, and if Pops is broken and sloppy -"

Jason cut himself off, looking troubled. Dick looked at Jason thoughtfully, but finally met Slade's gaze and sighed.

"I guess I can't talk you out of it," he said.

"Nope," Jason said.

"I want you on ground support for us from the BatCave," Slade said to Dick. "You'll stay with your dad while I'm out of town?" he asked, but Jason got the sense it was more of an order than a suggestion.

Dick groaned and leaned forward on his elbows, tugging at his hair.

"You didn't tell him what happened to me, did you, Jase?" he said, sounding an odd combination of fearful and hopeful.

"No," Jason said in surprise. "I didn't tell anybody except Slade. I wouldn't share that, Dickie."

Dick sighed.

"Unless you want me to…?" Jason asked him, taking in how Dick looked sick to his stomach. "If it would be easier for you to talk to him if I tell him first what happened, I will," he said.

Dick hesitated, and glanced to Slade. And aw fuck, that was awfully cute and despite the fact that Slade was a scammy sonofabitch, maybe it made Jason's heart feel a little more settled where Dick was concerned, to see how much Dick trusted the old asshole. Because for whatever reason, Jason trusted him, too, at least as far as not hurting Dick.

Oh, sure, he'd scoped out his real house and his safehouses and made plans to wreck the mercenary's life if anything went wrong while Dick was under his care, but Jason wouldn't have called him in the first place if he hadn't known deep in his bones that Slade cared about protecting his brother. And, well, apparently the old geezer had taken way fewer jobs this year so he could stick closer to Dick, and if scamming Jason made that possible, then maybe, fine, it was sort of ok.

"Why don't we sleep on it?" Slade said gently to Dick. "And let Jason know tomorrow."

"Ok," Dick said, looking relieved. "Yeah. That's a good idea," he said.

"Ok," Jason said. "The viewing's tonight for Steph," he said, "so I figured we'd head over to Tim's house in the middle of the night. I'm sure he's coming down from Metropolis for the viewing," he said, "and I'm damn sure his dad ain't gonna let him stay with Bruce."

"Ok," Dick said, looking drained from their conversation.

"Why don't you take a nap, Dickie?" Jason said kindly. "I'm gonna make us some dinner."

He glanced at Cass.

"Help," she smiled at him, and Jason smiled back.

"You guys can sleep in my bed if you want," Jason offered to Dick and Slade. "Or you can sleep on the couch, Dickie."

Dick looked at Slade.

"Couch is good," he said.

"I'll be right here," Slade said quietly, and damn if that didn't make Jason's throat get a little tight, so he turned away towards Cass and let her pull him up towards the kitchen.

"Lemme go pee and I'll be right back," Slade said to Dick, who nodded and came to take his place on the couch as he got up.

Jason and Cass moved into the kitchen, still holding hands and bumping hips with each other accidentally-on-purpose as they went, and Dick was just pulling one of the pillows off the floor and fluffing it under his head when they all heard a loud, "What the _FUCK?_ "

A door banged loudly and then Slade was standing in the middle of the room again, glaring at Jason and Cass.

"You couldn't have warned me there was a dead girl in the bathtub?" he grouched.

Dick turned his head sideways to stare first at Slade, then at Jason and Cass.

"Ooh, is the big bad Deathstroke scared of a dead girl?" Jason laughed at him. "I didn't know you were such a little baby."

"Boy -" Slade started to say to him, but Cass shook her finger in his face.

"Pee upstairs," she said. "Rude."

"She's dead," Slade pointed out, but something in the way Cass shifted her body weight had Deathstroke suddenly backing up, hands in the air. "All right, all right," he muttered. "Touchy."

"You have Steph in the bathtub?" Dick said in a tight, overly calm voice as Slade went slinking up the stairs.

"On dry ice," Jason said.

"Not smell," Cass added.

"Fantastic," Dick groaned, sinking back into his pillow and pulling a blanket over himself. "My brother the body-snatcher."

"And necromancer," Jason said cheerfully.

"Ok, Dr. Frankenstein," Dick muttered. "I hope you don't regret this."

"Relax, Dickie," Jason said. "Speaking as a formerly dead Robin, I can certify that my plan is brilliant. And better than the alternative," he added darkly.

"So better," Cass said as her spark suddenly deflated, leaving her looking sad and adrift again, like she had last night.

Jason wrapped his arm around her shoulders and hugged her tight, before daring to plant a kiss on top of her head.

"We'll get her back," he promised.

"Of course you will," Slade announced as he came back down the stairs, "because you hired me," he smirked.

Jason blew a raspberry at him before tugging Cass with him into the kitchen and Slade came over to the couch and lifted up Dick's feet to place them in his lap as he sat.

"You ok, little bird?" he asked softly under the clatter of pots and pans being pulled out and the refrigerator opened.

"You'll be really careful, right?" Dick said nervously. "I don't want to lose you."

"Baby, I got this," Slade said confidently. "You got nothin' to worry about."

"I wish I could come," Dick said, swallowing hard, but Slade just shook his head.

"It's fine, sweetheart. Me and Hood and Cain, we'll get it done and be back to you in no time. It'll give you time to spend with your dad," Slade said.

"Yeah," Dick mumbled miserably. "I want Jason to tell him for me, I think," Dick said, wiping his eyes. "Is that cowardly?"

"Little bird, coward is not in your vocabulary," Slade said, squeezing Dick's feet. "It's a good idea for Hood to tell him, if you want. Give Bats a chance to cry and get over himself first instead of dumping all that on you, if you shock him with it."

"I don't think Bruce cries," Dick said dryly. "But… yeah. I see your point."

"Get some sleep," Slade said comfortingly. "I'll be right here."

"I love you," Dick smiled at him.

"I love you, too, baby," Slade said.

He glanced towards the kitchen, saw Jason and Cass's backs turned, and stretched himself out over Dick to plant a kiss on his lips that turned into several when Dick wrapped his arms around his neck and trapped him there.

"Boyfriends, huh?" Slade said with a grin after a long minute of kissing.

"Is it ok I told them?" Dick said.

"Fuck yes, it's ok," Slade smiled. "You gonna tell your dad?"

"... when you get back?" Dick asked him, and Slade nodded.

"Good plan," the mercenary said. "Bats'll be so distracted by the undead girl that he won't give you half as much shit about us as he normally would," he said.

Dick giggled and tugged Slade down closer on top of him.

"Stay right here?" he begged him.

"Fine," Slade said, pretending to be put out, but he tugged the blanket off of Dick and wrapped it over both of them as he curled protectively over his Robin, threading a hand through his hair with a soft expression on his face.

"Cass ain't gonna hurt you, you know," Slade said quietly.

Dick jumped and looked up at Slade nervously.

"That obvious?" he sighed.

"It's PTSD," Slade said. "Ain't your fault."

"I wish I could get over it already," Dick muttered.

"Maybe we should stick around Gotham for a while when I get back," Slade said thoughtfully. "Hanging around Cass might be good exposure therapy, help you start feeling safe around women again."

"Ok," Dick said, snuggling a little tighter into Slade's chest. "Well, you know I'm gonna hang around anywhere you are, so."

He smiled up at his boyfriend.

"Same for me, little bird," Slade said. "Same for me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are love and thanks so much to those who've been commenting so much!! I LOVE YOU GUYS and you feed me so much encouragement and motivation. 
> 
> Next chapter, more worlds will be colliding! Tim and Kon and Lex come to Gotham! 
> 
> You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble - come say hi! And do check out my other stories! lots of rarepairs and Jason and romantic JaySteph, as well as a few other ongoing longfics.
> 
> Oh ok, and I am so proud of this, because I recently wrote the FIRST STEPHSHOT FIC ON AO3.  
> Yes. You read that right. Steph and Deadshot. Stephshot. Do check it out, but mind the very E tags, the particular smut may not be your cup of tea. It's called "Shot to the Heart."


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